THOMAS BAUER UNIVERSITÄT MÜNSTER

Communication and Emotion: The Case of Ibn Nuba≠tah's Kindertotenlieder

THE SPEECHLESSNESS OF DEATH

Ibn Nuba≠tah said, bewailing the death of his son: Qa≠lu≠ "fula≠nun qad jafat afka≠ruhu≠ / naz˝ma al-qar|d˝i fa-la≠ yaka≠du yuj|buhu≠" Hayha≠ta naz˝ma al-shi‘ri minhu≠ ba‘dama≠ / sakana al-tura≠ba wal|duhu wa-h˝ab|buhu≠ ["This man," they say, "has turned away his thoughts from verse, he'll barely give an answer." Composing poetry? Impossible for him whose child / Wal|d, whose dear beloved / H˛ab|b has settled in the earth!1]

Speechlessness is a natural reaction to the death of one's own child, and it seems as if it was the normal reaction for most Arabic poets, too. Only a small number of elegies on the death of a poet's child has come down to us. Most, however, are remarkable indeed. The Hudhaylian poet Abu≠ Dhu’ayb (d. ca. 28/649) composed an elegy on the death of his sons (A-min al-manu≠ni wa-raybiha≠ tatawajja‘u≠, meter ka≠mil), which is not only Abu≠ Dhu’ayb's unquestioned masterpiece, but also one of the finest and most famous poems of the early Islamic period in general.2 In the Abbasid period, Ibn al-Ru≠m|'s (d. 283/896) elegies on his relatives stand out, especially his exceedingly long dirge commemorating the death of his mother. But he also composed several shorter poems on the death of two of his sons.3 Even more famous, however, are two of several cases in which poets were induced by the loss of their children to compose a whole series of dirges. The first case is

Middle East Documentation Center. The University of Chicago. 1Ibn Nuba≠tah, D|wa≠n (Cairo, 1333/1905), 51 (meter ka≠mil). Tawriyahs are noted in my translations in the following way: The primarily intended meaning is underlined, the secondarily suggested meaning written in italics. In reading aloud, the words in italics should be omitted. 2Another early poem ascribed to a certain Bint al-H˛a≠rith is discussed in Gert Borg, Mit Poesie vertreibe ich den Kummer meines Herzens: Eine Studie zur altarabischen Trauerklage der Frau (Istanbul-Leiden, 1997), 199–204. Borg considers this poem as "one of the peaks of Arabic literature" (203). 3Pieter Smoor, "Elegies and Other Poems on Death by Ibn al-Ru≠m|," Journal of Arabic Literature 27 (1996): 49–85.

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Abu≠ al-H˛asan al-Tiha≠m| (d. 416/1025), whose three poems on the death of his son Abu≠ al-Fad˝l became the pillar of his fame, especially the ode rhyming in –a≠r| (meter ka≠mil) to which we will return later. The second case is Ibn Nuba≠tah al-Misr|˝ (d. 768/1366), who doubtlessly was, after Saf|˝ al-D|n al-Hill|,˛ the greatest Arabic poet of the eighth/fourteenth century. His d|wa≠n, which was compiled by his pupil al-Bashtak| from several smaller collections published previously by Ibn Nuba≠tah himself, contains seven poems on the death of a child. At least three of these poems commemorate the death of a son named ‘Abd al-Rah˝|m, but the others are so similar in tone and content that one may well assume that most of them were composed on the same occasion. Three of them are epigrams comprising two lines (one of them was quoted above), one is a seven liner, probably from Ibn Nuba≠tah's collection al-Sab‘ah al-Sayya≠rah,4 and the remaining three poems are long, sophisticated odes comprising 34 (askanta qalbiya lah˝dak, meter mujtathth), 38 (abk|ka li-al-h˝asanayni al-khalqi wa-al-khuluq|, meter bas|t¸), and 57 (Alla≠hu ja≠ruka inna dami‘ya ja≠r|, meter ka≠mil) lines respectively. Here I will focus on the last one. Al-Tiha≠m| and Ibn Nuba≠tah are not the only cases in which a poet composed a series of poems on the death of a child. One can name at least three other Arabic poets,5 but there are also two such collections in German literature. Nearly simultaneously (without knowing of each other's enterprises) Joseph von Eichendorff wrote a cycle of ten poems (Auf meines Kindes Tod) after the death of his daughter in 1832,6 and Friedrich Rückert reacted to the death of two of his children in 1833–34 with the composition of an ensemble of more than five hundred (!) so-called "Kindertotenlieder,"7 a term that seems suitable to me also for the (albeit much smaller) collections of al-Tiham|≠ and Ibn Nubatah.≠ Obviously, the death of one or more children may have caused a similar reaction in completely different epochs and cultures. Instead of losing their speech, poets may seek recourse to speech itself, or rather, an artistic transformation of speech. Composing poetry could have complied with the emotional needs after the tremendous experience of losing a child; in other words, it could have had a cathartic effect on the poet.

4‘Umar Mu≠sá Ba≠sha≠ assumes that all seven lines in al-Bashtak|'s recension stem from Ibn Nuba≠tah's collection Al-Sab‘ah al-Sayya≠rah; see ‘Umar Mu≠sá Ba≠sha≠, Ibn Nuba≠tah al-Mis˝r|: Am|r Shu‘ara≠’ al-Mashriq (3rd ed., Cairo, 1992), 250–51. 5Other poets who composed similar sets were Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih (d. 328/940), ‘Uma≠rah al-Yaman| (d. 569/1174), and Usa≠mah ibn Munqidh (d. 584/1188), but since there is nothing to suggest that Ibn Nuba≠tah's poems presuppose knowledge of these poems, we will not dwell upon them. 6Joseph von Eichendorff, Werke, ed. Jost Perfahl (3rd ed., Düsseldorf-Zürich, 1996), 1:243–48. 7Friedrich Rückert, Kindertodtenlieder, ed. Hans Wollschläger (Nördlingen, 1988); cf. also Eda Sagarra, "Friedrich Rückert's Kindertotenlieder," in Representations of Childhood Death, ed. Gilian Avery and Kimberley Reynolds (New York, 2000), 154–68.

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At first sight, this process seems easy to understand. A poet is shaken by overwhelming emotions, whereupon he sets about to express them in a poem. The resulting poem would thus reflect the poet's emotions. But things are not so simple. Yet it is this simplification that made Ibn Nuba≠tah's Kindertotenlieder attractive to some literary historians who are accustomed to criticizing Mamluk poetry for its allegedly mannered and unnatural style and are glad to find in Ibn Nuba≠tah's elegies on the death of his son(s) poetry that conveys the immediate, unaffected expression of "genuine feelings."8 Close inspection will reveal, however, that neither assumption is tenable: Mamluk poetry is not extraordinarily mannered, and Ibn Nuba≠tah's dirges are highly rhetorical. Of course, nobody can seriously doubt the sincerity of Ibn Nuba≠tah's feelings. But to transform emotions into literature means not only to transform them into speech, but also to transform them into an act of communication that conforms both to the rules of everyday communication and, furthermore, to the rules of a far more complex communication system of literature. This can be shown clearly by the epigram initially quoted. Its two lines follow exactly the pattern of an ideal apologetic epigram. In line one, the problem is identified: in this case, the poet is reproached for his speechlessness. In line two, a justification for the criticized behavior must be given, usually in the form of a point which is often based on linguistic or literary ambiguity. In our sample, the poet justifies his silence by the death of his child. This justification is given a pointed form by the use of a tawriyah (double entendre). The words which designate the child, wal|d "child" and h˝ab|b "beloved," have a double meaning. They are also the names of the two classical poets al-Wal|d al-Buh˝tur| and Abu≠ Tamma≠m (whose name was H˛ab|b ibn Aws). Together with the child, so we can understand the line, the poet lost his Buh˝tur| and his Abu≠ Tamma≠m. One can hardly imagine a better expression of the fact that a very individual, personal grief is not easy to communicate by means of a culturally prefigured and historically shaped set of rules. Ibn Nuba≠tah's epigram is an accurate and intelligent (as well as intelligently ambiguous) formulation of this experience. The epigram is remarkable in another respect. Its point is achieved by a tawriyah, a form of witty wordplay, which in modern eyes would hardly be considered appropriate to the somber occasion. But, as this poem shows, one has to be very careful about generalizing our own prejudices and applying them to other times and cultures. As is shown by the Kindertotenlieder of the Arab poets as well as by those of Rückert and Eichendorff, poetry—including its artistic and playful element—can be helpful in coping with the grief of the loss of one's own beloved, for poets as well as for their public. It

8See my review of Al-Ghazal f| al-‘As˝r al-Mamlu≠k| al-Awwal, by Majd al-Afand|, Mamlu≠k Studies Review 3 (1999): 214–19.

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COMMUNICATION WITH THE PAST: IBN NUBA≠TAH AND AL-TIHA≠M| Arabic poetry is not only a communication with contemporary (and future) audiences, it is always also a communication with the past. From pre-Islamic times onwards, Arabic poetry displays an extraordinary intertextual density. Every line and every concept refers back to many other lines and concepts in a more complex but often direct way than is the case in most Western literatures. Scholars at first had difficulty understanding that a seeming similarity between individual poems and lines was not due to impotence or a lack of originality or the inflexibility of an all-pervading convention, but was rather the result of a closely woven net of intertextual strands that was deliberately cultivated and consciously achieved by the poets. Arabic poems were expected, at all periods, to be original. But the notion of originality was different from that of early modern and modern Europe. After all, there was no hereditary nobility in the Islamic world against which a bourgeoisie had to revolt by setting its own norms of individualism in opposition to the class consciousness of nobility, as was the case in Europe. And since this factor did not exist, there was no need to abolish a poetic tradition that was considered satisfactory and perfectly fulfilled the needs of its participants. Instead, in premodern Islamic societies an extraordinary importance was given to poetry that can only occasionally be found in European societies. Since the degree of institutionalization was rather low in Islamic societies and social groups were only loosely organized, the most important strategy for the formation of social groups, the integration of their members, and their separation from other groups or social layers, was communication, that is, qualified participation in the group's dominant discourses. The rank of the individual member was established by his excellence in mastering the respective discourses rather than by the posts

9Since the psychological aspects of poetry as a reaction to one's relative's death have been dealt with extensively by Th. Emil Homerin, I will touch on this subject only peripherally, see Th. Emil Homerin, "A Bird Ascends the Night: Elegy and Immortality in Islam," revised ed., Journal of the American Academy of Religion 59 (1991): 247–79.

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10Because of the neglect of the Mamluk period and prejudices towards occasional poetry, these genres are so little studied that they even lack entries in The Encyclopaedia of Islam and the Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature.

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century standards of originality are still prevalent among contemporary Arabic scholars and lead to many misinterpretations.11 A characteristic misunderstanding is M. Muh˝ammad's treatment of Ibn Nuba≠tah's ra≠’|yah, the intertextual component of which he simply overlooked, though he did note some pre-Islamic lines, the alleged transformation of which by Ibn Nuba≠tah he considered unsuccessful.12 In general, however, he regarded the poem as sufficiently original, but criticized its seemingly rather unorganized structure (a point which will be discussed extensively later). He could discern neither a well-formed introduction nor several clearly separated text paragraphs. But in this case he was prepared to excuse the poet for these shortcomings (which they doubtlessly are in his eyes), since they gave testimony to the spontaneity, immediacy, and veracity of the poem: "He did not allow himself to contemplate the structure of his poem. . . ."13 "When Ibn Nuba≠tah started to elegize his son, he did not reflect upon the way in which he would carry out his elegy and relied on his natural disposition that would bring about the elegy in a form inscribed in his imagination. . . ."14 All these speculations turn out to be futile when we discover that Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem was not a spontaneous, unpremeditated reaction, but a consciously and very carefully elaborated work of art that was the artistic transformation of another poem. Ibn Nuba≠tah's choice was not spontaneous at all. He took as his model the only poem on the death of a child that had really gained fame, and, at the same time, dealt more extensively with the subject of childhood death itself.15 It is a poem by Abu≠ al-H˛asan al-Tiha≠m|, a poet who was born in the Yemen, but spent most of his life in Iraq, Syria, and Palestine, before he died as a prisoner in Fatimid Egypt.16 During his stay at Ramlah, where he held the office of a preacher, his son Abu≠ al-Fad˝l died as a child. Al-Tiha≠m| reacted by composing three elegies on Abu≠ al-Fad˝l's death, a short one of 13 lines (ka≠mil, rhyme –3q|17) that need not

11In the case of elegies, the focus on immediacy and originality "ignores the importance of standardized themes and their repetition, which are crucial to successful elegies as poets attempt to place their personal sorrow within more universal contexts." (Th. Emil Homerin, review of A±fa≠q al-Shi‘r al-‘Arab| f| al-‘As˝r al-Mamlu≠k|, by Ya≠s|n al-Ayyu≠b|, MSR 3 [1999]: 238). 12Mah˝mu≠d Sa≠lim Muh˝ammad, Ibn Nuba≠tah, Sha≠‘ir al-‘As˝r al-Mamlu≠k| (Beirut, 1420/1999), 225. 13Ibid., 221. 14Ibid., 222. 15In contrast to Abu ≠ Dhu’ayb's ‘ayn|yah, which had gained fame enough, but only very superficially deals with the fact that the deceased were children. 16On al-Tiham|≠ see Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden, 1967– ), 2:478–79; Wolfhart P. Heinrichs, "Al-Tiha≠m|," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 10:482; G. J. H. van Gelder, "Al-Tiha≠m|, ‘Al| ibn Muh˝ammad," Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey (London and New York, 1998), 2:772–73. 17-3q| means that the poem rhymes in -q| where -q| is preceded by one of the three short vowels,

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concern us here, and two lengthy sister poems,18 one of 81 lines (t¸aw|l, rhyme –xr|) that was obviously an intertextual reaction to a poem by Abu ≠ ‘Abd al-Rahma˝ ≠n al-‘Utb| (d. 228/842–3) with the same rhyme and meter,19 and a poem of 90 lines (ka≠mil, rhyme -a≠r|), which was to become al-Tiha≠m|'s most famous poem, in fact, the pillar of his fame.20 The lifetime of al-Tiham|,≠ the later Buyid period, featuring such poets as al-Shar|f al-Rad|˝ (d. 406/1015), his brother al-Murtad˝á (d. 436/1044), and Mihya≠r al-Daylam| (d. 428/1036–37), is the first period that was considered by Western scholars as a period of decadence and stagnation, and were it not for al-Ma‘arr| (d. 449/1058), its literature would have remained more or less unstudied. For Ibn Nuba≠tah, however, who lived almost three and a half centuries later, al-Tiham|≠ was a classical author. In Ibn Nuba≠tah's programmatic anthology Matla‘¸ al-Fawa’id≠ , this period is represented by three authors (of fifteen altogether): al-Shar|f al-Rad|,˝ al-Tiham|,≠ and al-Ma‘arr| (who, contrary to a common prejudice, was never neglected or even suppressed).21 Al-Tiham|'s≠ fame rested, as already mentioned, on his elegies for his son, especially on his kamil≠ ra’|yah≠ . His poems in this field were well known to Ibn Nuba≠tah, who quotes four lines from al-Tiha ≠m|'s kamil≠ ra’|yah≠ and six lines from al-Tiha≠m|'s t¸aw|l ra’|yah≠ in the chapter on ritha’≠ in his Matla‘¸ al-Fawa’id≠ .22 He may have quoted these lines without envisaging that one day he would come back to them after having experienced the same loss as their author. Al-Tiha≠m|'s elegy in –a≠r| is quoted in a great number of sources, to mention only al-S˝afad|'s Wa≠f| and al-Ba≠kharz|'s Dumyah.23 One can assume, therefore,

a, u, or i, while -xr|, the next rhyme scheme mentioned, means that -r| is preceded by any consonant. 18So called in Ya≠qu≠t al-Ru≠m|, Mu‘jam al-Bulda≠n, ed. Ferdinand Wüstenfeld (Leipzig, 1866–70), 2:819 (article "Al-Ramlah"). 19The poem is quoted (probably fragmentarily) in al-Khat|b¸ al-Baghdad|,≠ T≠a≠r|kh Mad|nat al-Salam,≠ ed. Bashsha≠r ‘Awwa≠d Ma‘ru≠f (Beirut, 1422/2001), 3:564, and in other sources. 20Its text is quoted according to the following edition: D|wa≠n Ab| al-H˛asan ‘Al| ibn Muh˝ammad al-Tiha≠m|, ed. Muh˝ammad ibn ‘Abd al-Rah˝ma≠n al-Rab|‘ (Riyadh, 1982). The t¸aw|l poem is found on pp. 338–43, the ka≠mil poem on pp. 308–22. In this poem, line 86 is a combination of two originally separate lines. The text has to be corrected according to al-Ba≠kharz|, Dumyat al-Qas˝r wa-‘Us˝rat Ahl al-‘As˝r, ed. Muh˝ammad al-Tu≠nij| (Beirut, 1414/1993), 1:140–49. Note that in my quotations of this poem, from line 86 onwards the number of the line in al-Rab|‘'s edition has to be augmented by one. 21Jama≠l al-D|n Ibn Nuba≠tah, Mat¸la‘ al-Fawa≠’id wa-Majma‘ al-Fara≠’id, ed. ‘Umar Mu≠sá Ba≠sha≠ (Damascus, 1392/1972). My study on the Mamluk literary anthology with special reference to Ibn Nuba≠tah's Mat¸la‘ al-Fawa≠’id is in press: "Literarische Anthologien der Mamlukenzeit," in Die Mamluken: Studien zu ihrer Geschichte und Kultur im Gedenken an Ulrich Haarmann (1942–1999), ed. S. Conermann and A. Pistor-Hatam (Hamburg, 2002). 22Ibn Nuba≠tah, Mat¸la‘ al-Fawa≠’id, 342–43. 23Further quotations are listed in al-Tiha≠m|, D|wa≠n, 320–22.

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that the contemporary audience of Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem realized that this poem is a mu‘a≠rad˝ah to al-Tiha≠m|'s famous ode, even upon hearing only its first line. Al- Tiha≠m|'s dirge starts with the following words: H˛ukmu al-man|yati f| al-bar|yati ja≠r| / ma≠ ha≠dhih| al-dunya≠ bi-da≠ri qara≠r| [Death's judgment makes its rounds among the creatures. This world is not a permanent home.] Ibn Nuba≠tah's introductory line refers to his model with the word ja≠r(|), the most prominent word in al-Tiha≠m|'s text, because it is its first rhyme word. He does not simply quote it, however, but makes it the object of the hearer's reflection, since Ibn Nuba≠tah's ja≠r| is a tawriyah (the first tawriyah in the poem). It can mean "my helper" or "running," and at the same time the less probable meaning "helper" is suggested by the preceding word ja≠ruka≠, which yields a jina≠s ta≠mm with the rhyme word. One may perhaps also mention the jina≠s mud˝a≠ri‘ between man|yah and bar|yah in al-Tiha≠m|'s verse, which is echoed by another jina≠s mud˝a≠ri‘ in Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem (awt¸a≠n/awt¸a≠r), to which again more prominence is given in this poem, since it includes the second rhyme word: Alla≠hu ja≠ruka≠ inna dam‘iya ja≠r| / ya≠ mu≠h˝isha al-awt¸a≠ni wa-al-awt¸a≠r| [God be your helper as my tears are flowing / my helpers, oh you who have forsaken both my home and hope!] As we can see, Ibn Nuba≠tah uses rhetorical devices here to direct the hearer's attention to the transformation of his model. But this is not their only function. Al-Tiha≠m|'s line is a very clear, straightforward, even proverbial statement that brings about sadness and comfort at the same time, for it reaffirms that whatever happens is part of an eternal and stable world order.24 With Ibn Nuba≠tah's line, we enter into a troubled world. The first pronoun (in ja≠ruka) does not refer to the hearer, as one might first think, but to the deceased child, but this only becomes clear at the end of the line. As unclear as the pronominal reference is the meaning of the first rhyme word, and the prominent similarity between awt¸a≠n and awt¸a≠r adds to the impression of uncertainty and ambiguity that is evoked in the hearer's mind. But this is exactly the main difference between the two dirges. A grave and stately, well-constructed ode by al-Tiha≠m| is contrasted with a poem that presents a mind that cannot find a way out of a world of despair, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Ibn Nuba≠tah manages to convey this message with his very first line, in which rhetorical devices are obviously far more than embellishments, for they serve not

24The most common motif of comfort in Arabic elegies is the statement that everybody must die; cf. Thomas Bauer, "Todesdiskurse im Islam," Asiatische Studien 53 (1999): 5–16.

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only to refer to the poet's model, but also to transform it into the poet's own perspective. References to al-Tiha≠m|'s poem permeate the whole of Ibn Nuba≠tah's ra≠’|yah, but it may suffice here to mention only two. The word mid˝ma≠r "race course," the rhyme word of line 5, sticks out. The comparison of life to a race course may be more familiar to the reader of German baroque poetry25 than to the reader of Arabic poetry, where it is—if my memory does not fail—not very common. It occurs, however, in al-Tiham|'s≠ poem, again with mid˝ma≠r as rhyme word (al-Tiham|,≠ line 27): La-qad jarayta kama≠ jaraytu li-gha≠yatin / fa-balaghtaha≠ wa-abu≠ka f| al-mid˝ma≠r| [Towards a goal you ran like me and reached it, while your father is still on the race course.] Al-Tiha≠m|'s striking and concise image of the experience of premature death of a beloved person is too good a line to be neglected by Ibn Nuba≠tah. And at first sight his line (line 5) even seems strikingly similar to that of al-Tiha≠m|: Layta al-radá idh lam yada‘ka aha≠ba b| / h˝attá nadu≠ma ma‘an ‘alá mid˝ma≠r| [Would that destruction had summoned me as well, when it did not refrain from you, so that we could have pursued the same race course!] Again al-Tiha≠m| supplies an interpretation of what happened. Life is a race course that inevitably leads to the same goal. The fact that some runners arrive first even if they had started later is nothing extraordinary; the child's death is therefore again embedded in the cosmic order. In Ibn Nuba≠tah's line, the poet and the child are no more on the same race course. Instead, radan "destruction" (a word common in pre-Islamic poetry but not occurring in the Quran), which is personified here, has summoned only the child and left the father on a road of his own. Only destruction, appearing here as a vague promise, could have united them, but even this hope proved to be futile. Hopeless despair has taken the place of al-Tiha≠m|'s trust in the cosmic order. The experience that the body of the deceased is still present in the grave but cannot communicate anymore is cast into the following words by al-Tiha≠m| (line 24):

25"Abend" in Andreas Gryphius, Gedichte, ed. Adalbert Elschenbroich (Stuttgart, 1968), 11: "Diß Leben koemmt mir vor als eine Renne-Bahn."

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Ashku≠ bi‘a≠daka l| wa-anta bi-mawd˝i‘in / law-la≠ al-radá la-sami‘ta f|hi sira≠r| [How much I complain that you are so far, though you lie in a place in which you could hear my most secret talks were it not for destruction's work!] The situation of the father at the grave is transformed into a paradox: although the child is near, it cannot hear nor answer. Ibn Nuba≠tah liked the line and quoted it in his Mat¸la‘ al-Fawa≠’id.26 But when he reverted to the ma‘ná in his own poem, it sounds rather different (line 12): Na≠’| al-liqa≠ wa-h˝ima≠hu aqrabu mat¸rah˝an / ya≠ bu‘da mujtami‘in wa- qurba maza≠r| Though the rhyme word is different in this case, al-Tiha≠m|'s model is clearly visible. But whereas al-Tiham|≠ explains the paradox ("if there were not destruction . . ."), it remains unresolved in Ibn Nuba≠tah's line. Further, it is condensed to the first mis˝ra≠‘ of the verse: "A long way 'tis to meet him, though his shelter is the nearest spot." There remains a second mis˝ra≠‘, but again Ibn Nuba≠tah gives no explanations. Instead, he simply repeats the ma‘ná in different words in the intensified form of an exclamation: "How far is union, yet how close the place to visit him!" This repetitiveness, this persistence in one and the same thought without suggesting to the hearer that there is a way out which is exemplified in this single line, is one of the main characteristics of the poem as a whole, as we shall see. The two t¸iba≠qs in this line (na≠’in/qar|b; bu‘d/qurb) are again not embellishments, but appear as a logical consequence of the sense the poet wants to convey, just as is the case with his tawriya≠t and jina≠sa≠t, as we have already seen. Several other lines in Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem turn out to be transformations of a line by al-Tiha≠m|,27 but these three examples may suffice for the moment to show that Ibn Nubatah's≠ ra≠’|yah was in no way a spontaneous creation, but a well-planned and deliberately-composed intertextual response to another poem. And since the author spared no effort in directing attention to exactly this fact, the poem presupposes a reader/hearer who is equally prepared and willing to invest considerable effort to decipher not only the complex poetic language of the poem itself, but also its many intertextual relations. For many readers, however, these efforts must have been rather satisfying, as the fame of this poem proves.

26P. 342. 27Cf. the chart below, p. 78.

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THE TOPICS OF COMMUNICATION: PRIVATE SPHERE AND HEROIC AFFAIRS As the single lines of the poem are most carefully elaborated, it is hard to believe that the structure of the poem—or rather, the obvious lack of an easily discernible structure—came about by accident. Again a glance at al-Tiha≠m|'s poem may be helpful. If Ibn Nubatah's≠ ra≠’|yah leaves the impression of being more or less unstructured, one can hardly imagine a more clearly structured poem than al-Tiha≠m|'s ra≠’|yah. The poem starts with an introduction contemplating the transitoriness of human life in general, culminating in a line that is the versification of a famous hadith (line 6):

Fa-al-‘ayshu nawmun wa-al-man|yatu yaqz˝atun / wa-al-mar’u baynahuma≠ khaya≠lun sa≠r| [Life is sleep, death is awakening, and man between them is a fleeting vision.]

Following this introduction (lines 1–11), al-Tiha≠m| turns to the ritha≠’ proper (lines 12–39), in which he laments the death of Abu≠ al-Fad˝l, of which part we have already quoted lines 24 and 27. The third part, however, which stretches from line 40 to 63 and is the central part of the poem, comes somewhat as a surprise, for it is a formidable example of the fakhr genre, 33 lines in praise of the poet's "tribe" (whatever this may have been), introduced by the following lines (40–41):

Law kunta tumna‘u kha≠d˝a du≠naka fityatun / minna≠ bih˝a≠ra ‘awa≠milin wa-shifa≠r| Wa-dah˝aw fuwayqa al-ard˝i ard˝an min damin / thumma inthanaw fa-banaw sama≠’a ghuba≠r| [If a chance were given to defend you, young heroes from us had waded into a sea of spear-heads and sword-blades, unfolding above the earth a second earth of blood, erecting then, when they return, a sky of dust.]

This collective fakhr is followed by a fourth part, a sort of personal fakhr, that starts with a complaint about old age (64–75), leading into a passage (76–90) devoted to general wisdom (h˝ikmah), self-glorification, and a complaint about the vileness of the poet's time and his contemporaries (dhamm al-zama≠n). Whereas proverbial expressions of the transitoriness of human glory or the complaint about old age seem to be absolutely appropriate themes for elegies, self-glorification and a praise of military prowess can hardly be reconciled with

Article: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_VII-1_2003-Bauer_pp49-95.pdf Full volume: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MamlukStudiesReview_VII-1_2003.pdf 60 THOMAS BAUER, IBN NUBA≠TAH'S KINDERTOTENLIEDER our image of mourning. We must, however, take into account two basic premises of premodern Arabic poetry, first, its basically and consciously communicative nature, and second, the conception of the ritha≠’ genre. For Arabic literary theory, ritha≠’ was considered a subcategory of mad|h˝, since the essence of an elegy was praise. The only difference from panegyric poetry was that the object of praise is a dead person.28 If, however, elegies are nothing but eulogies, it is inevitably difficult to compose elegies for people who could not have been the subject of an eulogy. Still in al-Tiham|'s≠ time, a poet who wanted to write panegyric poems on persons other than princes, rulers, governors, or generals had a difficult task. Basically, the mamdu≠h˝ should be praised for two qualities: generosity and military prowess. Still al-Mutanabb|, forced in his youth to compose poetry on several as˝h˝a≠b al-qalam, rarely and briefly mentions their professional proficiency, but instead tries to find some link to the theme of bravery, even if he has to go back to some real or imagined ancestors of the mamdu≠h˝, who may never have had a sword in their hands. If qud˝a≠h and kutta≠b are difficult to praise, it is easy to understand Ibn Rash|q when he stresses that "one of the most difficult tasks for a poet is to elegize children and women, for he cannot say much about them, since their distinguishing qualities are but few" (li-d|q˝ al-kalam≠ ‘alayhi f|hima≠ wa-qillat al-s˝ifat),≠ 29 which is not so much a misogynistic statement as a sober observation that the common poetic themes of madh ˝ are hardly reconcilable with the reality of the life of women and children. Therefore, it is no wonder that earlier poems on childhood death confine themselves mainly to the subjects of death, transitoriness, and mourning, and do not talk much about childhood. Often such poems are more similar to zuhd poetry than to ritha≠’. There are basically two ways to bring in the subject of childhood. First, the poet may say that the feelings of a father towards his child are especially intense. This is done by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih and al-Tiha m|≠ several times, but it is a topic that can hardly be extended over more than one or two lines. The second, more important, strategy is the following: since the poetic tradition did not provide a stock of subjects and concepts to talk about what children were, poets instead talked about what the child did not become. If children did not achieve anything worth mentioning in poetry, the poet could nevertheless imagine what the child (in this case, of course, only sons come into question) would have achieved were he not deprived of his opportunities by premature death. By proceeding in this manner the poet was able to bring in all the conventional and indispensable themes of a eulogy and elegy proper and to compose a poem on a subject that was not given a recognized place in literary tradition.

28Gregor Schoeler: "Die Einteilung der Dichtung bei den Arabern," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 123 (1973): 9–55. 29Ibn Rash|q, Al-‘Umdah f| S˝ina≠‘at al-Shi‘r wa-Naqdih|, ed. al-Nabaw| ‘Abd al-Wa≠h˝id Sha‘la≠n (Cairo, 1420/2000), 2:843.

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Al-Tiha≠m| makes use of this device in the most extensive way. In his t¸aw|l ra≠’|yah the central part, beginning with line 39, starts with a complaint that the father's grief is doubled by the realization that his son could not take part in heroic military actions. To quote but one example (line 43), he could not prove his prowess: Bi-d˝arbin yut¸|ru al-b|d˝u min h˝arri waq‘ih| / shu‘a≠‘an ka-ma≠ t¸a≠ra al-shara≠ru min al-jamr| [With sword strokes so hot that beams are made to radiate like sparks that fly from live coal] After mentioning other heroic actions that the child could not carry out because of his premature death, al-Tiha≠m| leads predictably from the subject of military prowess to that of generosity, until he concludes this section in line 54. The only other subject besides military virtues is, in line 51, al-Tiha≠m|'s regret that his son never had the opportunity to bring forth the beauties of prose and poetry, a motif that was taken up by Ibn Nuba≠tah in his lines 17–18. This long, central passage from lines 39–54 in al-Tiha≠m|'s t¸aw|l poem is the counterpart to the fakhr section in the sister poem in ka≠mil. Obviously we will only be able to understand the innovative quality of Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem if we understand the function of these fakhr sections in al-Tiha≠m|'s poems and the complete absence of the subject of heroism in Ibn Nuba≠tah's poems. First of all, we must not fall into the trap of reading these poems as primarily autobiographical. Al-Tiha≠m| is said to have originated from a family of low birth,30 for which reason alone one should be admonished not to take the praise of the heroic deeds of his "tribe" too literally. And one would certainly miss the point if the heroic passage in his t¸aw|l poem were interpreted as reflecting al-Tiha≠m|'s dream that his son would have pursued a military career. In all probability al-Tiham|≠ did not dream of a son as soldier. Instead, one can conceive of two reasons for the inclusion of the heroic passages. First, heroism is a good counterweight to the paralysis following the experience of a tremendous loss. Already in pre-Islamic poetry, heroic themes serve to counterbalance the loss of self confidence depicted in the nas|b, and the reassurance of one's own value in a social undertaking such as war is again a reasonable way to overcome the isolation, which is a consequence of the bereaved's retreat into his pain and his memories of past bliss. The second and, I think, more important reason is the fact that a premodern Arabic poem, even if it deals with such an intimate subject as the death of one's own child, still remains primarily an act of communication directed by its author

30Heinrichs, "Al-Tiha≠m|," 482a.

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to a specific public. From a communicative point of view, however, poems on childhood death are an extremely problematic genre. First, they have no immediate addressee. The child is already dead, the bereaved person is the poet himself (who is most affected, but cannot address a poem to himself), and since the child did not yet play a public social role, there is nobody other than the father/poet himself who can be consoled for having undergone a loss. In this respect, an elegy on children is different from genres like panegyric poetry or love poetry, in which there is an addressee (ruler, beloved) to whom the poem is (at least nominally) directed. In other genres in which there is no direct addressee, like wine, garden, or hunting poetry, still the recitation of the poems formed a part of special social occasions, whereas there was no special social situation for the performance of a poem on childhood death. Islamic funeral rites leave no room for the recitation of elegies. As a small poem, focussing on the subject of transitoriness, it may be used in the same way as any other zuhd poem and recited on occasions in which people used to exchange zuhd|ya≠t. But to make a great affair out of the death of a small child was more difficult. Al-Tiha≠m| wanted to make a monumental poem to match his monumental grief. Therefore he had to have recourse to the accepted "monumental" subjects like heroism and magnanimity, and he succeeded in composing a really impressive poem that gained wide circulation and indeed impressed its readers for centuries. Three and a half centuries later many things had changed. Gradually the kutta≠b had ceased to form a distinct social group with specific skills and knowledge and its own canon of literature. By the Mamluk period, their functions had been taken over completely by the ulama, a group of scholars who had undergone a more or less identical basic training and socialization. Ibn Nuba≠tah and, a century later, Ibn H˛ajar al-‘Asqala≠n|, to mention only two examples, had more or less the same sort of academic training. Both felt especially attracted to the fields of hadith and poetry, and it was by no means inevitable that the first should become a great poet and the other a great muh˝addith. And still Ibn Nuba≠tah was the primary transmitter of Ibn Ish˝a≠q's S|rah in Egypt, and Ibn H˛ajar left a small but fine d|wa≠n of excellent poetry. As poets, both of them seized the opportunity to get in contact with the last remaining Arabic-speaking dynasties. Ibn Nuba≠tah found a patron in al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad, the Ayyubid ruler of H˛ama≠h, whereas Ibn H˛ajar entered the court of the Rasulids in the Yemen. These patrons gave them plenty of occasions to compose panegyric poems with traditional structure and thematic content, but in the end even for them the poetic relations to their fellow ulama proved to be more important than the favor of princes. Though Ibn Nuba≠tah may have considered his Mu’ayyad|ya≠t as his primary achievement, his d|wa≠n contains more poems addressed to the Subk|yu≠n, the Abna≠’ Fad˝l Alla≠h and other ulama, and the same is, mutatis mutandis, also true for Ibn H˛ajar. Therefore,

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in the literary system, the ulama had not only taken over the functions of the kutta≠b, but also the functions of the princes as patrons, addressees of panegyric poetry, and as models of an ideal personality. Of course, Mamluk poets had no difficulty in praising a qadi, a muh˝addith, or a nah˝w| for his scholarly abilities, and had no need to resort to the subject of military prowess, which had largely lost its former importance in Mamluk literature anyway, since the Mamluks themselves were only peripherally part of the literary system, whereas the civilian elite had (and was supposed to have) little to do with warfare. The decreasing importance of the military elite in the system of literature did not lead, however, to a decreasing social importance of poetry in general or of the panegyric poem in particular. Just the opposite was the case. The former asymmetric poetic communication between a prince and patron as addressee on the one side and the poet as supplicant on the other had given way to a symmetric communication between ulama who were not only able to judge the literary merits of a poem addressed to them, but also to answer it with a poem of their own. And since the ulama had more or less monopolized poetic discourse, poetry became a means of integration with and delimitation from other social groups.31 In addition, poetic skill could also serve as a means to distinguish oneself and to acquire social status. Therefore, in the Mamluk period we witness at one and the same time the disappearance of the professional poet as well as an increase in the social importance of poetry. This new social role of poetry had, of course, consequences for poetry itself. The most obvious consequence is the increasing importance of genres which immediately serve the poetic communication between the ulama, such as congratulation poems (taha≠ni’), poems of condolence (ta‘a≠z|), or poetic exchanges (mut¸a≠rah˝a≠t), not to mention the countless exchanges of riddles, epigrams (hence the unprecedented popularity of these forms in the Mamluk period), or rhymed fatwás and other, even more occasional, forms of poetry. Poetry in praise of the Prophet is another genre that was particularly successful in Mamluk times since it could satisfy the emotional and religious requirements of the ulama as well as present their values and concerns. Another consequence of the fact that poetry became more and more a means of communication among the members of a rather closely defined social group is its increasing intimacy. Obviously, ulama started to become interested in each others' family life. While we know virtually nothing about the wife/wives and children of the most outstanding poets and scholars from the early and middle Abbasid period, al-Sakha≠w| (to mention only one) provides the readers of his

31Cf. Thomas Bauer, "Ibrah|m≠ al-Mi‘mar:≠ Ein dichtender Handwerker aus Ägyptens Mamlukenzeit," ZDMG 152 (2002): 63–93.

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D˛aw’ al-La≠mi‘ with plenty of gossip about the family life of his contemporaries, and gives a very detailed account of the marital crisis of his venerated teacher Ibn H˛ajar in his biography.32 Unfavorable as his description might appear at first, it was certainly not malicious, since al-Sakha≠w| honored his teacher almost as a saint. Instead, he might have considered the exposition of private details rather as a "human touch" that would add common interest to his biography and understanding for its subject. Ibn H˛ajar, in turn, was not devoid of this new interest in intimate matters. In one of the longest ghazal poems ever written, he made love of his wife and yearning for his child during his pilgrimage its main theme.33 It is inconceivable that al-Buh˝tur| or even al-Mutanabb| could have composed a love poem about his own wife! A very striking example of this new tendency is also the fact that Abu≠ H˛ayya≠n al-Gharna≠t¸| (d. 745/1344), the greatest grammarian of the Mamluk age, composed a series of nine poems on the death of his daughter Nud˝a≠r, whereas elegies on daughters are hardly found before.34 One may also mention the poet Ibra≠h|m al-Mi‘ma≠r (d. 749/1348), a craftsman who was not really accepted as an equal among the ulama, but whose poetry was nonetheless highly esteemed for its striking, witty, and satirical portrayal of the pangs and pleasures of everyday life in Mamluk Cairo.35 Perhaps the most striking and moving example of this tendency is Ibn Su≠du≠n's (d. 868/1464) poem on the death of his mother, "a very personal and intimate picture of the tender loving mother figure who spoils her little boy and cannot let him go, not even when he is married. . . . There is a certain bitter-sweetness in this poem, a melancholy sense of humor, and certainly a very personal touch."36 So unprecedented was this poem that Ibn Su≠du≠n could not help but include it in the section of hazal|ya≠t, because he could not find a "serious" traditional genre that would allow for such intimacy.

32Al-Sakha≠w|, Al-Jawa≠hir wa-al-Durar f| Tarjamat Shaykh al-Isla≠m Ibn H˛ajar, ed. Ibra≠h|m Ba≠jis ‘Abd al-Maj|d (Beirut, 1419/1999), 3:1207–27. 33Thomas Bauer, "Ibn H˛ajar and the Arabic Ghazal of the Mamluk Age," in Migration of a Literary Genre: Studies in Ghazal Literature, ed. Thomas Bauer and Angelika Neuwirth (Beirut, forthcoming). 34Th. Emil Homerin, "A Bird Ascends the Night"; idem, "'I've Stayed by the Grave': An Elegy/nas|b for Nud˝a≠r," in Literary Heritage of Classical Islam: Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of James A. Bellamy, ed. Mustansir Mir (Princeton, 1993): 107–18; idem, "Reflections on Poetry in the Mamluk Age," MSR 1 (1997): 63–85, esp. 80–85. These elegies display also a very private and intimate tone. Since Nud˝a≠r, a very educated woman, was already 28 years old when she died, these poems do not fall into the category of childhood death. Nevertheless it is remarkable that Abu≠ H˛ayya≠n composed a whole series of poems to commemorate her death, just as the poets who had lost their infant sons did. 35Bauer, "Ibra≠h|m al-Mi‘ma≠r." 36Arnoud Vrolijk, Bringing a Laugh to a Scowling Face: A Study and Critical Edition of the "Nuzhat al-Nufu≠s wa-Mud˝h˝ik al-‘Abu≠s" by ‘Al| Ibn Su≠du≠n al-Ba£bug≥a≠w| (Leiden, 1998), 45.

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As these examples show, people started not only to become interested in the private life of their fellows, but also came to think that other people's personal fate was relevant for their own life and could provide a model, an encouragement, or a comfort in individual situations. And, as a last step, they considered these topics worthy of being treated in the prestigious medium of poetry. As a consequence, poems on childhood death also acquired a new importance. For now it was no longer more or less unimportant what a person had to say about the death of his child, and one no longer had to have recourse to a topic such as heroism that was publicly accepted as important in order to draw attention to a poem on the death of one's own child. It seems as if this development had taken place even before recurrent epidemics of the plague made the death of children an everyday experience. If we consider the social, literary, and public-health circumstances of his time, it is little wonder that Ibn Nuba≠tah's poems on the death of his children have a conspicuously different starting point from those of al-Tiha≠m|. Ibn Nuba≠tah could take public interest in his poems for granted, even if he limited himself to the subject of the death of his own child. Therefore, his poems were never a soliloquy, nor can they be interpreted as the poet's most intimate expression of his own feelings, especially because such feelings met with general appreciation. Instead, these poems were part of a dialogue between the afflicted poet and the literary public of his time; there is no reason to doubt that Ibn Nubatah≠ was aware of this, and one may well assume that for Ibn Nuba≠tah this form of literary conversation added a lot to the comforting effect of the composition of his poems. Of course, these poems were intended for publication. Unfortunately Ibn Nuba≠tah's own collections of his poetry are not yet published and we only have an anthology of Ibn Nuba≠tah's pupil al-Bashtak| at our disposal. Nevertheless, we may assume that more than one of the books Ibn Nuba≠tah published himself contained Kindertotenlieder. The response given to his work corroborates our assumption. Already al-Bashtak| had enough material to include seven Kindertotenlieder in his recension of Ibn Nuba≠tah's d|wa≠n. Ibn Nuba≠tah's elegies were copied out and exist in manuscripts independent of Ibn Nuba≠tah's d|wa≠n.37 Indeed, the most important and exhaustive consolation manual for parents who had lost their children was written by Ibn Ab| H˛ajalah (725–76/1325–75), a near contemporary of Ibn Nuba≠tah. In this book, entitled Salwat al-H˛az|n f| Mawt al-Ban|n, Ibn Ab| H˛ajalah quotes first al-Tiha≠m|'s ka≠mil ra≠’|yah, followed by 26 lines from Ibn Nuba≠tah's muna≠z˝arah on this poem.38 And if Mamluk and Ottoman Arabic literature were better known, one would certainly be able to adduce many more examples of the

37To mention only Wilhelm Ahlwardt, Die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin: Verzeichnis der arabischen Handschriften (Berlin, 1887–99), 7:77, 277. 38Ibn Ab| H˛ajalah, Salwat al-Haz|n˛ f| Mawt al-Ban|n, ed. Mukhaymar S˝a≠lih ˝ (Amman, 1994):143–49.

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reception of Ibn Nuba≠tah's poems. But the examples mentioned may suffice to show that Ibn Nuba≠tah's poems can only be properly understood when their function in the system of communication of the ulama is taken into account.

TALKING ABOUT CHILDREN Mamluk society lacked the high degree of institutionalization of comparable Western societies. What was achieved here by institutions had to be achieved there by discourse, that is to say, by communication. This was true not only for scholars, but also for military rulers. As Al-Harithy has shown in a recent article, even the Mamluks themselves gave great weight to communication and tried by means of architecture, the most important form of art for them, "to enforce the dialogue between ruler and ruled" and developed the façades of their buildings "into a sophisticated means for addressing the urban environment and its dwellers."39 It is amazing to see that this increasing importance of communication instead of representation had an effect on architecture that appears strikingly similar to the effect it had on certain forms of literature. Al-Harithy states that "the static symmetrical façades of the Fatimid period were replaced by dynamic façades in the Mamluk city . . ., and the emphasis on axial symmetry gave way to an emphasis on continuity."40 This comparison with architecture does not, of course, imply that there was a general tendency towards less strictly structured poems in the Mamluk period. Rather, the bipartite qas˝|dah was still the prevalent model, which was applied even to the popular genre of praise of the Prophet. But it should demonstrate that it is not only in architecture that the message of works of art "is not literal or direct, but implied as part of the general Mamluk social discourse and practice."41 In literature, this may mean a less ceremonial and representative attitude (one is even tempted to use the word "bourgeois," would it not imply too many false connotations); a great flexibility to meet the immediate communication purposes; an increasingly feeble delimitation between the official and the unofficial, the high and the low, the public and the private, the serious and the humorous; and a very high density of messages and signals the reader has to decode. In the case of Ibn Nuba≠tah's ra≠’|yah, the consequences are rather the same as noted by Al-Harithy for architecture. Al-Tiha≠m|'s representative structure—symmetrical, with heroism at its center—gives way to a supple structure that consists of small paragraphs of mostly three lines with a smooth transition between them. There is no clear thematic or structural break in the whole poem.

39Howayda Al-Harithy, "The Concept of Space in Mamluk Architecture," Muqarnas 18 (2001): 87. 40Ibid., 90. 41Ibid.

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The theme of heroism is no longer present (lines 49–52 will be dealt with later). Instead, I know of no other poem in which the theme of childhood is treated so extensively as here.42 First, it is present linguistically through the repetition of the address ya≠ / a-bunayya "my little son!" (lines 4, 20, 24, 25, 33, cf. also ban|ya line 36, t¸ifl line 30, al-as˝a≠ghir line 53) that is scattered over the greater part of the poem. The prevailing notion in dealing with childhood death is its prematureness. In this respect, Ibn Nuba≠tah does not differ from al-Tiha≠m|. But of course the Mamluk scholar did not complain about heroism manqué. Instead, he focused on a general treatment of premature death. The first line in this series is line 6, which is the transformation of one of the heroic concepts of al-Tiha≠m|. In his self-praise we learn (line 81): Wa-al-na≠su mushtabihu≠na f| |ra≠dihim / wa-tafa≠d˝ulu al-aqwa≠mi f| al- is˝da≠r| [When they are driven to the water-place, all people are alike. Their different ranks are only visible when they are driven back.] In this line, coming into life is compared to the cattle's coming to a watering place, and death, consequently, is the coming back from it. When Ibn Nuba≠tah transformed this famous line, he compared life to a sojourn at a watering place and left out everything heroic. The son should not have proved his rank; he should have simply been given the opportunity to experience the whole cycle of life. Nevertheless, al-Tiha≠m|'s model remains visible, and I doubt that Ibn Nuba≠tah's line can be fully understood if one doesn't know al-Tiha≠m|'s. Ibn Nuba≠tah says (line 6): Layta al-qad˝á al-ja≠r| tamahhala wirdahu≠ / h˝attá h˝asibta ‘awa≠qiba al- is˝da≠r| [Would that destiny had delayed in its permanent course till you could have imagined the end of the route!] The theme of premature death is carried on with similar images in line 7 (lightning that did not bring rain) and line 13 (a twig that did not bring forth fruit).

42I will not discuss here the importance of Ibn Nuba≠tah's poems for the study of the history of mentalities. There is, of course, no doubt that these poems reflect a far more intimate relation between fathers and their children than is posited by Philippe Ariès for pre-eighteenth-century Europe. But I suppose that this was already the case in the Abbasid period, even if a poet like al-Tiha≠m| still had difficulties in communicating it without recourse to motifs of heroism. A discernible change in mentalities between the time of al-Tiha≠m| and the Mamluk period cannot be established on the basis of the present material. On children in Islam see also Avner Giladi, Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval Muslim Society (London, 1992).

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Several lines later, Ibn Nuba≠tah for once expresses more concrete ideas. Again he seems to have followed al-Tiham|'s≠ example. In line 51 of his t¸aw|l poem, al-Tiham|≠ mentions a single non-military deed that his son was prevented from performing by his early death. It is the only concession to the fact that he himself is a poet, not a warrior:

Wa-lam tukhjil al-rawd˝a al-an|qa bi-rawd˝atin / mufawwafati al-arja≠’i bi-al-naz˝mi wa-al-nathr| [Nor could you shame the graceful garden by a garden, the sides of which are variegated by poetry and prose.]

In al-Tiha≠m|'s line, prose and poetry fit very well in the enumeration of heroic deeds of which they form a part, for they are seen as achievements the child failed to perform, and the child's achievements are obviously something of which to be proud. In Ibn Nubatah's≠ poem, the father does not complain about his son's unachieved accomplishments, but about the fact that the father never had the pleasure of hearing his son talk to him (line 17), and when Ibn Nuba≠tah states that his son's "feet of intelligence did not wade into the seas/meters of poetry" (line 18), it is again not the disappointment of a father's hopes, but rather the son's missed opportunities that are regretted.43 There is no connection between the child and the public. The only counterpart to the son is his own father. In this way the more intimate and private nature of Ibn Nubatah's≠ poem as compared to that of al-Tiham|≠ becomes visible even in the transformation of a single motif. The motif of premature death undergoes several developments in the course of the poem. In lines 40 and 41 it is connected with the theme of grey hair that had its exposition in line 26. In lines 20 and 33, it is softened by stating that the son's fate is everybody's fate and the disparity between the lifespan of the son and that of the father became but small. In lines 21–22, finally, the motif is inverted altogether. The son's death was not premature at all, since he did not miss anything in this world, and his death came just in time. Al-Tiha≠m|'s versification of the hadith saying that man's life is "but a fleeting vision" (Ibn Nuba≠tah clearly alludes to this line by means of the words al-khaya≠li al-sa≠r|) is here pursued to its final consequence and applied to the son's short life. Premature death not only means missed opportunities but also avoided guilt. The child's innocence, which is expressed in line 11, is a theme unknown to me from al-Tiham|≠ or any other author before Ibn Nubatah.≠ As we see, the consequences

43Abu≠ H˛ayya≠n's daughter Nud˝a≠r lived long enough to develop a good command of literary language. Her father does not fail to mention this in a line with extraordinary rhetorical sophistication; see Homerin, "'I've Stayed by the Grave,'" 112.

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of an early death are illuminated from all angles in this poem, and the respective lines are scattered all over the poem and run through it like a thread. But premature death is not Ibn Nuba≠tah's only way to mention childhood. He could hardly have done without the old motif saying that the death of a small child must not mean small sorrows. Ibn Nuba≠tah presents this well-known motif, which was common already long before al-Tiha≠m|, skilfully in the form of a dialogue using very simple expressions (line 10). When the son is mentioned for the first time, it is said that he was a light burden when alive, whereas the grief for his death is heavy to bear (line 4). This is one of the few lines in which bodily features of the child play a role, as well as the father's way of dealing with his child. Paternal care is also mentioned in line 31. It is striking that religion hardly plays a role in this poem. There are several unspecific references to "fate" that could just as well be pre-Islamic, but only two references to Islamic concepts. The first is the statement of line 3 that the child is in paradise (which is also mentioned in lines 22 and 34). This line is, by the way, another transformation of a line of al-Tiha≠m|, and I cannot help but imagine that whoever grasped this relation must have found it rather funny, despite the earnest subject of the poem. In the final section of al-Tiha≠m|'s ka≠mil poem, the poet boasts of his insuperable virtues and tells us that he feels pity for those who envy him "for the heat of rancor gathered in their breast" (line 76), and he continues (line 77):

Naz˝aru≠ s˝an|‘a Alla≠hi b| fa-‘uyu≠nuhum / f| jannatin wa-qulu≠buhum f| na≠r| [When they perceive how God acted towards me, their eyes dwell in heaven, their hearts in hell.]

In Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem, it is the child who is in heaven, and the poet who is in hell. Children, of course, have no difficulties in entering heaven, since there is no concept of an original sin in Islam. As far as parents are concerned, there are several hadiths according to which those who lost several (or even only one) of their children will enter paradise or will at least be granted considerable advantages on the Day of Judgment.44 These traditions have to be seen in the light of the tendency to grant martyrdom for causes of death that were considered especially cruel (pestilence, disease of the belly, death in childbed, etc.). Parents who lost their child are still alive. Nevertheless their fate was considered sufficiently cruel

44These hadiths are the main content of treatises for the comfort of parents who have lost a child to premature death. A bibliographical list is given in Thomas Bauer, "Islamische Totenbücher: Entwicklung einer Textgattung im Schatten al-G˘aza≠l|s," to appear in Akten des 19. Kongresses der Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Halle 1998.

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to grant them conditions that factually come rather close to martyrdom. This concept is alluded to in line 24, in which the son is asked to serve his father on the Day of Judgment as a recompense for the father's "entreasuring" his son's body in the earth. Since this prerequisite is purely metaphorical, the line acquires a taste of bitterness and cannot be regarded as a straightforward expression of religious feelings. Obviously still in Mamluk times, in which religious poetry became increasingly popular, religious and poetic discourse remained as clearly distinguishable as they were in previous periods,45 and not necessarily the same answers to a problem were given in poetry as in hadith or law. These are the main representations of childhood in Ibn Nubatah's≠ poem. Unlike al-Tiha≠m|'s ra≠’|yahs, there is no section devoted to childhood death, but the theme of childhood is present throughout the poem. Due to the ubiquity of the theme in this poem, even motifs that only accidentally have to do with childhood are given a new context in the mind of the audience. So it is conventional to compare the weeping of the bereaved with the cry of the pigeon, but in this poem one is again made aware of the fact that the pigeon weeps over its nestling (line 8). And in countless elegies the clouds are asked to pour rain on the grave of the deceased with a lot of different images. In this poem, however, it cannot be incidental that the image of breastfeeding is chosen in line 56, the penultimate line of the poem. Taken together, the image of childhood and childhood death is present in this poem in more than forty per cent of its 57 lines, compared to about ten lines out of 90 in al-Tiha≠m|'s ka≠mil ra≠’|yah.46 Since the subject of childhood death permeates the whole poem, the audience/reader will connect all other themes and images to this subject as well, and this is what gives this poem an unprecedented intensity, which is enforced by the constant repetition of a small stock of themes and images and the use of rhetorical devices, as we will see in the following.

THEME AND DEVELOPMENT Just as is the case with the theme of childhood, other themes and images recur over and over again. Instead of building separate blocks dedicated to different subjects, the poem is a constant play with a limited stock of themes and images. One is reminded of the musical technique of exposition and development. In fact, most of the concepts are presented in the first six lines of the poem, and developed in the following sections. The main themes besides childhood are: (1) tears, (2)

45Bauer, "Todesdiskurse," and idem, "Raffinement und Frömmigkeit," Asiatische Studien 50 (1996): 275–95. 46His t¸aw|l ra≠’|yah contains more lines on childhood death, but since the whole passage on heroism is formally constructed as a complaint on premature death ("he did not march under the banner . . ."), it is hardly comparable.

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(4) Stars have already been a recurrent theme in al-Tiha≠m|'s poems. In Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem, the theme of stars/light and darkness starts in line 7 with the image of lightning, is continued in lines 14 and 15, but assumes major importance in the second half (lines 28–30, 36, 41, 44, 45, 51, 52, 56). Since we have already seen how Ibn Nuba≠tah develops his themes by confronting them with different situations and with each other, we need not go into detail here. The same is true with theme (5) "water, garden, plants," which occurs in lines 2, 3, 6, 7, 13, 14, 18, 22, 34, 53, and 57. Even themes of lesser importance are dealt with in the same way. In line 26, the theme of grey hair is introduced in the form of an antithesis. In this place, it has little more to say than that the pleasures of life are gone. Only in the paragraph comprising lines 41 to 43 do we realize the potential of the theme, since here it is confronted with the theme of premature death, and it turns out that with the help of a tawriyah this confrontation results in a quite interesting image. This is Ibn Nuba≠tah's method for the greater part of his ra≠’|yah. He takes a limited stock of themes and tries out what happens if these themes are confronted with each other or with different situations. So the same themes and motifs appear under constantly changing perspectives. On the other hand, the persistence of the same themes reflects a mind whose thoughts constantly dwell on the same matters, thus reflecting despair and hopelessness. This method is pursued until the beginning of the last passage in about line 40. Until then we have heard about the death of the boy and the father's despair. But an elegy has to address the subject of comfort and self-control. After all, s˝abr is one of the main virtues and one of the most important subjects of the Arabic elegy in general, and it is also the main subject of the final part of Ibn Nuba≠tah's ra≠’|yah. It starts with the statement that everybody must die (line 40), which is elaborated in the "grey hair" passage already mentioned (lines 41–43). The fact that everybody must die was obviously considered the most convincing argument for consolation, much more so than the prospect of paradise, which is only rarely mentioned in poetry.47 In a group of again three lines, Ibn Nuba≠tah continues the elaboration of this theme in lines 44 to 46, leading from the celestial sphere to earthly tombstones. Two lines (47–48) admonish the hearer—and probably the father himself—to think about this fact and consequently to show s˝abr. The most common motif to express the fact of the inevitability of death is the ubi sunt qui ante nos motif, to which the following six lines are devoted. In an amazing climax, the poet adduces three groups of people, each of them presented in two lines. First, the former kings, the most commonly mentioned group in the ubi sunt passages, are all dead (lines 49–50). The second group are the war heroes, and

47Bauer, "Todesdiskurse," 12.

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RHETORIC AND EMOTION Poetry is communication, and a poem is only meaningful if its communicative function is taken into regard. This has already been stated, but it must inevitably be repeated in a chapter dealing with emotions. Many contemporary Arabic scholars assume that it is the main function of a poem to "express feelings," and that the quality of a poem can be determined more or less according to the degree of directness by which a poet "expresses his true feelings." If a poet uses more than only a very limited number of rhetorical devices in his poem, it is considered an indication that the poet's feelings are not sincere and the poem is "a mere play on words" and of no further poetic relevance.48 This attitude is sometimes considered to be a reflection of European romanticism, but I suppose that two other roots are more important. The importance given to the "sincerity" of emotions, the fact that emotions themselves are the focus of interest rather than their poetic transformation, and the postulate that these emotions should be spoken out in a direct and immediate way point to a Protestant origin of this attitude.49 One of the entrance gates of such ideas may have been the Protestant mission of the Americans in Beirut, which during the nahd˝ah period played a major role in forming modern Arab attitudes towards literature. The other root of the enmity towards rhetorics in the modern Arab world is the European, especially French, enlightenment. One of the ideals of this movement was purity of language and clarity of expression, which resulted in a general devaluation of the literature of previous periods, especially of the era of the baroque, but proved rather disadvantageous for the production of poetry (romanticism was a major attempt to overcome the sterility and dullness of enlightenment poetry). When the French set out to colonialize the Arab world, they were faced with the problem that, contrary to sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab world already possessed what was considered civilization by European standards of that time. In this situation, the French made literature and language one of their main weapons. It was acknowledged that the Arab world had developed a great civilization in the "Middle Ages,"50 but afterwards this civilization was subject to a

48Bauer, Review of al-Afand|. 49On the Protestant origin of this attitude see Hans-Georg Soeffner, " Luther: Der Weg von der Kollektivität des Glaubens zu einem lutherisch-protestantischen Individualitätstyp," in Vom Ende des Individuums zur Individualität ohne Ende, ed. Hanns-Georg Brose and Bruno Hildebrand (Opladen, 1988), 107–49. 50The still current application of the term "Middle Ages" and "medieval" to Islamic history is a remnant of the colonialist degradation of Arabic and Islamic culture in that its whole premodern history is limited to the role of a transition period between the two really "valuable" periods, antiquity and modernity. At least, this was the reason for the coinage of this term in Europe. To use this designation for great parts of Arab history means to deprive the Arab world of the right of

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process of steady decline and decadence, and this decadence was considered to be especially visible in the case of literature with its "baroque" and over-ornate style.51 In fact, it was literature which gave the French one of the arguments for the justification of a mission civilisatrice in the Arab world. This went hand-in-hand with the propagation of the French language, which was considered an unsurpassable model on account of its clarté,52 and it is small wonder that it set the norm for literary style in Arabic as well. And just as former (and, as we see it now, formidable) periods of European literature had been disparaged for the benefit of the bourgeois taste of enlightenment, now with the same arguments the overwhelming portion of Arabic literature was disparaged for the benefit of colonialism. Still, more than a century afterwards, a colonialized mind is clearly visible in contemporary Arab attitudes towards premodern Arabic poetry. But it is high time now to stop applying criteria to this literature that it can never match. In fact, no premodern Arab poet ever tried to "express true feelings"; he would not even have understood the words ‘abbara ‘an shu‘u≠r s˝a≠diqah, let alone applied them to judge literary texts. Instead, he might have used a formulation like that used by Ibn Rash|q, who, after having stated that it is particularly difficult to compose elegies on women and children, continues: "One of the best and most saddening (ashjá) elegies on women, one of those that have the deepest effect on the heart (ashaddih| ta’th|ran f| al-qalb) and in arousing grief (wa-itha≠ratan li-al-h˝uzni) is the poem by Ibn ‘Abd al-Malik on his umm walad. . . ."53 Here, as in countless other statements, the poet is not judged according to the feelings he expresses, but according to the feelings he arouses in the audience/reader. This result should motivate us to ask what is meant by the formulation "to express one's feelings." To "express a thought" means to put it into words that match it as exactly as possible and therefore allow it to be communicated to others without causing misunderstanding. To "express a feeling," however, can hardly mean in a poetic context to put a feeling into words in order to inform the hearer as precisely as possible about the physical and psychic effects of it. This would be appropriate in a confession, an examination of one's conscience (I already mentioned the Protestant roots of this concept), or in a psychoanalysis, but not in a poem. Ibn Nuba≠tah very obviously did not want to inform his contemporaries of the fact that

having a history of its own that is meaningful even if it is not constantly related to European history. Remarkably enough, historians do not speak of medieval Japan or China. 51Thomas Bauer, "Die bad|‘iyya des Na≠s˝|f al-Ya≠zi©i und das Problem der spätosmanischen arabischen Literatur," in preparation. 52Ulrike Freitag, Geschichtsschreibung in Syrien 1920–1990: Zwischen Wissenschaft und Ideologie (Hamburg, 1991), 83–89. 53Ibn Rash|q, ‘Umdah, 2:846.

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he suffers insomnia and is forced to weep on account of the death of his son. Had he aspired to do so, he could have set out his emotional state of mind in plain prose and written a letter to the few people who might have been interested in his personal concerns. Instead, he composed a poem that was meant to be published and to be of relevance to many other people who were not the least interested in the "sincere feelings" of a certain Ibn Nuba≠tah. They were, however, interested in their own feelings (and the reflection of their own feelings in somebody else), and therefore it again seems that the old critics who regarded the effect of a poem rather than the sincerity of the poet's feelings were nearer to the reality of the literary communication system than the proponents of the notion of emotional expression. Nevertheless, the feelings of the poet himself are not completely irrelevant. Even Arabic literary theorists established that to be really in love or really filled with wrath does help a lot in composing good ghazal or hija≠’ poetry.54 But they never use the notion of "expressing" these emotions, and therefore we may well ask where exactly the feelings and emotions are in a poem. The only possible answer is to state that, again, the emotions are nowhere else than in the audience/reader of the poem, and that the poem's function is to evoke these emotions in the recipient. Inevitably, the poet himself is not only the poem's producer, but also its first audience, and his emotional reaction to the poem is at least similar to that of the intended public. Therefore, the poet will test—consciously or not—whether the poem has more or less the same emotional effect on himself which it is supposed to have on its later hearers and readers. The notion of "expressing" a feeling is therefore hardly anything other than a metaphorical expression for arousing a feeling in the hearer that is similar to the feeling in the mind (or wherever feelings may be) of the poet himself. The emotions, therefore, are not somewhere in the poem, which is supposed to express them, but they are induced more or less successfully by the poem in the audience (the poet himself included). This is corroborated by the fact that the means to induce feelings by literary texts can be analyzed fairly well, whereas the question of whether a poem expresses the sincere feelings of its author must always remain pure speculation. In the case of Ibn Nuba≠tah's Kindertotenlieder, we have, of course, no reason to doubt the depth and sincerity of their author's feelings. It is beyond any doubt that these feelings helped a lot to create the masterly poem that we have before us. However, this does not help much to understand the poem, but rather leads in a wrong direction, as we have already seen. The poem is not a spontaneous outburst of uncontrolled emotion, but a carefully planned and executed text, as is shown by its structure, which may seem chaotic at first glance but turns out on closer

54Ibid., 1:194, 198, but compare ibid., 1:329–45.

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55Therefore, Ibn Nuba≠tah's ra≠’|yah is said to "abound with images full of passion and poetic presentations full of heat," as is stated by Ya≠s|n al-Ayyu≠b|, A±fa≠q al-Shi‘r al-‘Arab| f| al-‘As˝r al-Mamlu≠k| (Tripoli, Lebanon, 1995), 174. An accurate review of this book is given by Th. Emil Homerin in MSR 3 (1999): 237–40. 56With the exception of anaphora I limited myself to the traditionally established rhetorical figures, which are at the same time clearly recognizable. Stylistic features like insija≠m (cf. the contribution of G. J. van Gelder in this volume), which would not be considered as foregrounding devices, are not represented in the chart. As a convenient reference and for an English translation of the names of rhetorical figures I use Pierre Cachia, The Arch Rhetorician or The Schemer's Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic bad|‘ drawn from ‘Abd al-Ghan| an-Na≠bulus|'s Nafah˝a≠t al-Azha≠r ‘ala≠ Nasama≠t al-Ash˝a≠r (Wiesbaden, 1998) and Wolfhart P. Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," EAL 2:656–62. In the last column of the chart I noted the number of the line of al-Tiha≠m|s ka≠mil poem (in italics) and of his t¸aw|l poem (in parentheses) which was the model for the respective line of Ibn Nuba≠tah. I completely disregarded hyperbole, which plays only a minor role in the poem. One may add the rhetorical figure of qasam "oath" (Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 139) for line 39; iqtiba≠s (ibid., no. 169) for line 40 (it may be considered a vague allusion to Quran 38:3, but is rather a common formula); and al-madhhab al-kala≠m| "logical argumentation" (Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 127; W.P. Heinrichs, "al-madhhab al-kala≠m|," EAL 2:482) for line 47.

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1 1 30 14 2 31 ? 3 23 32 4 33 5 27 34 6 80 35 7 sh 36 sh 8 37 9 38 10 20 39 ? 11 40 ? 12 24 41 13 42 sh 14 sh 43 15 44 16 sh 18 45 17 46 18 (53) 47 18 19 sh 48 20 49 ? 21 sh 6 50 22 2 51 (43) 23 52 24 53 sh 25 54 26 55 27 56 28 sh 57 29

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If we include the four lines marked with a question mark in column "jina≠s," but regardless of whether we regard the column "anaphora" or not (since anaphora was not a well established figure in indigenous Arabic rhetorical theory), we can conclude that every line with the sole exception of the very last contains one or more rhetorical figures. These figures are not distributed evenly in the text; rather their distribution reflects the structure explained above. While the first part is dominated by simile and metaphor, which are often used to form a mura≠‘a≠t al-naz˝|r, and the emotional intensity of this part is reinforced by several anaphoras, the final part is dominated by t¸iba≠q. Let us briefly consider the most important figures of speech and rhetorical devices: (a) Anaphora (like alliteration or the epigram) is one of those devices that were well known and consciously used by Arabic poets, but had no specific technical term and were not considered by literary theory.57 To start several consecutive lines with the same word(s) is indeed one of the oldest and most characteristic devices of the elegy and can be traced back to the primitive forms of the pre-Islamic niya≠h˝ah.58 This kind of anaphora, reflecting perhaps the repeated desperate cry of the wailer, is the most atavistic device of the marthiyah and maybe the most immediate expression of despair. In a highly sophisticated poem like that of Ibn Nuba≠tah it is, of course, no longer immediate to that degree, but in all probability the hearer will still associate it with overwhelming emotionality. This is most probably also its main function in Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem, where it seems to have been used very consciously. Starting with two relatively inconspicuous anaphoras in lines 5–6 and 8–9, which do not have any structuring function, there follows a lahf| passage (lines 13–15) featuring three images of premature death, and, interrupted by a line mentioning the grave and the place of the deceased boy in the father's memory, an a‘ziz ‘alayya passage, again mainly about premature death. The more complicated anaphoric words correspond to the more complicated images of premature death in this passage. The other lines marked as anaphoric are those beginning with a-bunayya.59 They are scattered over the first part of the poem to remind the hearer constantly of the fact that the object of the poem is a child. One should mention that Ibn Nuba≠tah makes less use of the anaphora in his other elegies on his son, and in al-Tiha≠m|'s ka≠mil ra≠’|yah it is completely absent.

57One may subsume it under the rubric takra≠r (cf. Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 53), but rhetoricians do not specify the unit within which the repetition has to take place. In most examples of takra≠r, a word or phrase is repeated within a single line. 58See already Ignaz Goldziher, "Bemerkungen zur arabischen Trauerpoesie," Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlands 16 (1902): 307–39. 59I did not mark the isolated lines starting with a-bunayya (lines 20 and 33) in the above chart. I am not sure if the anaphora was felt as such in these cases.

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(b) Simile (tashb|h) and metaphor (isti‘a≠rah) are the all-prevailing means of foregrounding in this poem. The first half especially is dominated by them. Three quarters of lines 1–39 contain one or more of these figures, whereas less than a third of the remaining lines do so. The following chart gives a list of the prima and secunda comparationis, arranged alphabetically according to the primum comparationis:60

babies blossoms 53 grey hair dust 42 babies pearls 54 intestines earth 16 boy flash of lightning 7 kings mountains 50 boy eye 9 life race course 5 boy twig 13 life rest at water place 6 boy pearl 14 moon bow 45 boy star 15 pain fire 3 boy apparition 21 pain load 4 boy treasure 24 pleasures whiteness 26 boy intestines 35 poetry sea 18 child stars 30 stars nails 28 child moon 36 sun stars 29 darkness trail 28 tears helpers 1 dawn curtain 29 tears rivers 2 dust clouds 36 tears rain 7 earth clothes 20 tears gold 9 face dinar 32 tears seas 14 father pigeon 8 tears pearls 19 fortune ruins 25 tears drink 34 grave garden 2 tongue host 17 grave shelter 12 words guest 17 grave mount 38

60I omitted the isti‘a≠rah "feet of intelligence" of line 18.

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The main function of comparison in this poem is obviously to create and connect the five themes that form the basis of the major part of the poem. The experience of the boy's death is transformed into a world consisting of the elements tears, journeys, earth, stars, and gardens, which permanently interact. Many items occur more than once in one of the columns or in both of them. This world is based largely on comparison, but to attract the audience's attention to the act of comparing would have disturbed the impression. Therefore, the similes and metaphors are less interesting in themselves than in what is achieved by them. It is not surprising thus that the most original simile, the comparison of babies in their cradles with blossoms (line 53), is not found in the five-themes part of the poem but in its final section, in which there are only a few similes and metaphors anyway. Finally, one may note that apparently Ibn Nuba≠tah was keen to avoid monotony and to further conceal the extensive use of comparison by varying the formal means of comparison. Several types and constructions of metaphors and similes alternate, and there are never two consecutive lines that contain a particle of comparison (lines that contain such an a≠lat al-tashb|h are marked with sh in the chart above). (c) The same tendency is reflected in the remarkably high number of lines that form what is called mura≠‘a≠t al-naz˝|r, that is, consist of images and/or ideas that pertain to the same semantic sphere.61 In most cases, the figure is brought about by two (or more) comparisons that lead into the same semantic realm. In this way Ibn Nubatah≠ produces lines that are entirely devoted to images like garden, thunderstorm, twigs, doves, pearls, night and stars (this image is even carried on over the three lines 28–30), etc. All these topics are part of the five themes that form the skeleton of the poem's first part. In these lines, the respective theme appears alone and undisturbed. But it is fascinating to see how Ibn Nuba≠tah repeatedly interrupted the sequences of mura≠‘a≠t al-naz˝|r by lines featuring a t¸iba≠q "antithesis." Neither the lines containing t¸iba≠q nor those containing mura‘a≠ t≠ al-naz|r˝ exceed thematically the frame of the five themes mentioned previously. The poet thus dwells on the same subjects, but treats them with different stylistic devices. This conveys an image of density and insistence. Consequently, in the latter third of the poem no single instance of mura≠‘a≠t al-naz˝|r occurs. (d) T˛iba≠q (or mut¸a≠baqah) "antithesis," 62 is another extremely important figure in this poem. Of course, the contrast between life and death lends itself easily to

61Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," 658–59; Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 73 (to include cases of phonetic resemblance seems to be a purely theoretical phenomenon in latter bad|‘ treatises and can be ignored here). 62Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," 659; Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 79. Though Cachia is right to note that t¸iba≠q is wider in reach than antithesis, I cannot persuade myself to translate it as "parallelism." I wonder if "contrast" would be an adequate translation.

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the construction of antithetic contrasts, but Ibn Nuba≠tah's t¸iba≠qa≠t go far beyond that scope. Ambivalence and contrast dominate the father, the son, their destiny (on earth as well as in heaven), their mutual relation, and finally the whole of life and the whole of mankind, as the following chart (in the compilation of which the term t¸iba≠q was used in its most restricted way) shows:

paradise hell 3 white black 41 light heavy 4 shoot be hit 45 warada s˝adara 6 rejection confirmation 46 small big 10 revelation secret 47 far near 12 mountain dust 50 distant close 12 darkness sparks 51 clothed naked 20 intactness destruction 52 sleep sleeplessness 27 bones flesh 54 highland lowland 35 pearls stones 54 souls bodies 37 patience grief 55

And again, the rhetorical figure not only corresponds with the structure of the poem but is, in fact, one of the main devices to structure it. While in the first part a few instances of t¸iba≠q are used to contrast a far greater number of mura≠‘a≠t al-naz˝|r, the second part of the poem with its more general reflections about life and death is largely dominated by t¸iba≠q. Starting with line 35, we can observe an antithetic accelerando culminating in the ubi sunt passage (lines 49–54) with its surprising climax kings/heroes/babies. The last t¸iba≠q in the poem is the contrast between s˝abr "patience" and jaza‘ "grief," a contrast that is shown in the end as insuperable. (e) The extensive use of jina≠s, the phonetic or graphic resemblance (or even identity) of two semantically different elements (words or word pairs), is not specific to any special period of Arabic literature. Even the pre- and early-Islamic poet al-A‘shá was extremely fond of it (not to speak of al-T˛irimma≠h˝ and the Umayyad rajaz poets), and Abu≠ Tamma≠m was notorious for his jina≠s excesses. Enthusiasm for jina≠s is neither a sign of decadence nor something particularly characteristic of the Mamluk period. In this time, however, it became the subject of a somewhat tragic dispute. I call it tragic because it seems as if this controversy destroyed the friendship of the two most important hommes de lettres of the eighth/fourteenth century, Ibn Nuba≠tah and al-S˝afad|. The latter had composed a collection of poetry of his own, in which he carried the potential of jina≠s to its

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extreme.63 ‘Umar Musá≠ Basha≠ ≠ may be right to assume that the reason he composed the book was his determination to counter Ibn Nubatah's≠ sophisticated and innovative treatment of the tawriyah with the propagation of another rhetorical figure. Al-Safad|˝ was enormously proud of his achievement, sent his booklet to many fellow ulama, and proudly collected the accolades (taqr|z˝a≠t) he received.64 Ibn Nubatah,≠ however, proved himself not to be amused by al-S˝afad|'s amassing of jina≠sa≠t, and "things too long to explain occurred between both on this account."65 In the end, it seems as if al-S˝afad| fell in with Ibn Nuba≠tah's stylistic trend in favor of the tawriyah and composed a treatise on this subject66—only to be accused by Ibn Nuba≠tah of plagiarism (an accusation that was only too justified, if we accept Ibn H˛ijjah's judgement).67 What a time, in which friendships broke apart not out of avarice, but out of a quarrel about rhetorical figures! Ibn H˛ijjah's position in this respect is quite clear, and it seems by and large to reflect Ibn Nuba≠tah's attitude.68 Jina≠s is, he concludes, one of the more primitive rhetorical figures, and too much of it can spoil any poem. In right measure, however, it can add to a poem's value. According to Ibn H˛ijjah, it is especially effective in the first line of a poem, if the poet fails to produce a tawriyah, which would be the more elegant (and more modern) way to start.69 Needless to say, in our poem Ibn Nuba≠tah succeeds in combining a jina≠s with a tawriyah, and at the same time alludes to his model, al-Tiha≠m|, in his first line. Aside from the introductory line, jina≠s in fact plays a minor role. It marks the climax of the lahf| series in line 15, where it is again combined with a tawriyah, thus again lending enormous prominence to the verse. Then we find it in a very marked way in line 37, the emotional climax before the concluding part, and again combined with a tawriyah in the rather complicated line 43. As a result, we may note, in this poem Ibn Nuba≠tah uses jina≠s only very sparingly and consciously to emphasize lines of special importance for the content and/or the structure of the poem.

63Al-S˝afad|, Kita≠b Jina≠n al-Jina≠s f| ‘Ilm al-Bad|‘ (Constantinople, A.H. 1299, reprint Beirut, n.d.). The edition by Samir≠ Husayn˛ Halab|˛ (Beirut, 1407/1987) adds a lot of misprints in consequence of which the text acquires a certain dadaistic flavor. See also Ba≠sha≠, Ibn Nuba≠tah, 445–47. 64Al-S˝afad|, A‘ya≠n al-‘As˝r wa-A‘wa≠n al-Nas˝r, ed. ‘Al| Abu≠ Zayd et al. (Damascus, 1987–88), 1:397–98, 3:291, 374–76, 501–2, 5:361–63. 65Ibn H˛ijjah al-H˛amaw|, Khiza≠nat al-Adab wa-Gha≠yat al-Arab (2nd ed., Beirut, 1991), 1: 56. 66Al-S˝afad|, Fad˝d˝ al-Khita≠m ‘an al-Tawriyah wa-al-Istikhda≠m, ed. ‘Abd al-‘Az|z al-H˛inna≠w| (Cairo, 1399/1979). See also Ba≠sha≠, Ibn Nuba≠tah, 456–59. 67Ibn H˛ijjah, Khiza≠nah, 2:121–29. This is only one of several possible reconstructions of the story between Ibn Nuba≠tah and al-S˝afad|. Further research is required. It should include a study of the relation between Ibn Nuba≠tah's Al-Saj‘ al-Mutawwaq and al-S˝afad|'s Alh˝a≠n al-Sawa≠ji‘ (both still unedited). 68Ibn H˛ijjah, Khiza≠nah, 1:54–55. 69Ibid., 55.

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This is the case as far as real jina≠s is concerned. It is appropriate, however, to address here the problem of the four lines labelled with a question mark in the column jina≠s in the chart. In fact, when I drew up this chart, in the end five lines remained without entry. Apart from the final line, these were lines 31, 39, 40, and 49. But when I compared these lines, I realized that all of them contained the same sort of paronomasia in a very similar way: h˝udhirtu . . . h˝idha≠r| (line 31), khat¸arin min al-akht¸a≠ri (line 39), ayna al-fira≠ru . . . h˝|na al-fira≠ri (line 40), and ‘atharu≠ . . . ayya al-‘itha≠ri (line 49). Each of them contains a jina≠s al-ishtiqa≠q with the second word being the rhyme word. But a jina≠s al-ishtiqa≠q was not considered a jina≠s proper by the rhetoricians, since there is no semantic difference between its two elements. A poem, however, is not a work of theory, and one can hardly doubt that there is some sort of foregrounding in the four jina≠sa≠t al-ishtiqa≠q in Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem as well. Therefore, it seems appropriate to label these lines as indeed containing a rhetorical figure with, however, a rather low degree of rhetorical markedness. It seems as if the poet shunned the contrast between rhetorically marked and completely unmarked lines, and as if he wanted to reserve the effect of this contrast to the very last line. Therefore he provided the lines mentioned with at least an etymological jina≠s rather than letting them stick out by having no rhetorical prominence at all. (f) The tawriyah "double entendre" was the rhetorical figure par excellence for the Mamluk period, and Ibn Nuba≠tah was indisputably its greatest master.70 It is hardly accidental that the career of the tawriyah coincided with the increasing participation of ulama in the system of literature, because in the tawriyah the ulama could create consciously the ambiguity they were used to detecting in the sacred texts during their exegetical activities. Therefore the tawriyah is far more than word play. It is—at its best—the reflection of the ambiguity of man's perception of the divine world order and a playful plumbing of the borders of human language—epistemology in the form of a poetical device. Unfortunately, the well- known prejudices have prevented scholars so far from studying the usage of tawriya≠t in the texts of the Mamluk period. Many such studies would be necessary, however, to ascertain the proper place of this rhetorical figure, its achievements, and the specific usage made of it by different poets in different poems. So far, I can only judge impressionistically that in our sample poem Ibn Nuba≠tah uses the tawriyah in a comparatively modest way. In lines 1, 15, and 43 it is used together with a jina≠s to highlight three particularly important lines of the poem. Several times a tawriyah is used to connect themes. So in line 15, it connects the themes of travel and star, in line 56 clouds and stars. In line 33 it enables an antithesis.

70Ibid., 2:39–251; Seeger A. Bonebakker, Some Early Definitions of the Tawriya and S˝afad|'s Fad˝d˝ al-Xita≠m ‘an at-Tawriya wa-'l-Istixda≠m (The Hague-Paris, 1966); Ba≠sha≠, Ibn Nuba≠tah, 448–64; Thomas Bauer, review of Ibn Nuba≠tah, by M. Muh˝ammad, MSR 6 (2002): 219–24.

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The theme of grey hair is treated in lines 41–43, where the term ashhab is used in several meanings, connecting this subject with the notion of horses in line 41 (alluding to the notion of life as a "race course" of line 5) and connecting it again with the theme of stars in line 43. More independent is the use of the tawriyah in lines 32 and 45. A dinar and a moon are ordinary, harmless things, but the tawriyahs make the reader suddenly aware that transitoriness lurks behind them. In general, one may say that the great master of the tawriyah restrained himself considerably in this poem and assigned a purely subordinate function to this rhetorical figure.71 (g) To mention briefly the other more conspicuous rhetorical figures: in line 1 both hemistichs rhyme (tas˝r|‘). This is not surprising, but nevertheless adds to the rhetorical fireworks of this introductory line. The small paragraph stretching from line 10 to 12 shows a beautiful variety of rhetorical figures. It starts with an antithesis that is cast in the form of a question and answer, a figure that is called mura≠ja‘ah.72 The next line enumerates in logical order all organs with which men are wont to do evil. This is called tart|b.73 Further, I wonder if lam yusi’ in this line suggests a non-actualized meaning of "sword" for ma≠d˝in, in which case we would have another tawriyah before us. Finally, the passage concludes with a double t¸iba≠q in line 12. With two rather uncommon figures (together with t¸iba≠q), Ibn Nubatah≠ interrupts two blocks of verses featuring anaphora and mura‘a≠ t≠ al-naz|r˝ and thus saves the poem from monotony. A similar case is lines 22–23, in which a radd al-‘ajuz ‘alá al-s˝adr (repeating the rhyme word in the first hemistich)74 and a muma≠thalah (metrical isocolon without rhyme)75 conclude a paragraph of four lines in which the father complains to his son about his miserable life. In line 26, a "fanciful cause" (h˝usn al-ta‘l|l)76 is given for the white hair of the father, which is introduced in this line. "Feigned ignorance" (tajahul≠ al-‘arif)≠ 77 is the way to present the subject of sleeplessness in lines 29–30. Rather prominent is the figure of istikhda≠m78 in line 44, in which the terms "scorpion" and "lion" must be interpreted as signs of the zodiac, if the genitives al-falak and al-buru≠j are considered, but as animals, if the adjectives lasu≠b and d˝a≠rin are considered. Finally, the subject of

71One may perhaps add line 17, where qa≠rin "host" may also be interpreted as qa≠ri’ "reader," and line 11, where ma≠d˝in may be conceived as "sword." 72Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 146. 73Ibid., no. 68. 74Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," 660–61; Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 56. 75Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," 660; Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 7. 76Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," 657; Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 132 (his translation). 77Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," 659 (his translation); Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 135. 78Heinrichs, "Rhetorical Figures," 657, Cachia, Rhetorician, no. 107, Bonebakker, Some Early Definitions, 18–20.

Article: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_VII-1_2003-Bauer_pp49-95.pdf Full volume: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MamlukStudiesReview_VII-1_2003.pdf 86 THOMAS BAUER, IBN NUBA≠TAH'S KINDERTOTENLIEDER s˝abr, with which the poem shall conclude, is introduced in line 48 by means of another radd al-‘ajuz ‘alá al-s˝adr, in which way it can be expressed very directly and clearly without abstaining entirely from rhetorical figures. Altogether, a great variety of rhetorical figures is applied in this poem, but none of them gains prominence. Nevertheless, the high number of rhetorical figures, the uninterrupted foregrounding, plays an important role in the communicative potential of the poem. At the end of the first section we asked why and how the composition of elegies could be of use for the poet himself. Part of the answer was that poetry enables communication. But this communication only works if there is a recipient. Therefore we have to ask what the use of hearing or reading an elegy on the death of somebody else's child may be. Of course, a natural group of potential readers of such poems are other people who have lost their children. This is corroborated by the fact that part of Ibn Nuba≠tah's ra≠’|yah is included in Ibn Ab| H˛ajalah's manual for the consolation of parents bereft of a child. In times of the Black Death, this group must not have been inconsequential. For them, the consoling effect of the poem is quite obvious; a trouble shared is a trouble halved. But this is only part of the story. After all, Ibn Nuba≠tah's dirges were included in his d|wa≠n, and this d|wa≠n was also read by people who had not lost a child. Further, the d|wa≠n contains other elegies, especially a famous elegy on the death of Ibn Nuba≠tah's patron al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad, and the number of people who grieved the loss of a prince was probably not too great. Nevertheless, they were moved by the poem. This is not difficult to understand if we consider the popularity of modern forms of art with which we are more familiar, for example, the opera. Though most people have never had problems and experiences like those of Rigoletto or Tosca, many are moved to tears by being confronted with them. Film enthusiasts will not have problems adducing similar examples from this medium. In general, it is again one of the prejudices of the school of "immediate expression of true feelings" that the experience of the artist is the most central point of a work of art, which requires that the ideal recipient must have undergone a rather similar experience in order to understand him and to judge the veracity of his expression. But it is not primarily interest in the experiences of the poet that makes the normal recipient turn to his works. A more important reason for confronting oneself with works about death and suffering is the aspiration of a therapeutic effect through catharsis, as Aristotle has noted. Nowadays a neuropsychological approach can help us understand this effect better. It can be shown that the effect of catharsis does not so much aim to make negative emotions disappear, but rather to put them into a new context, allowing one's emotions to be seen in the context of other emotions and experiences and thereby gaining more consciousness of them. For "the reader of a literary text is able to engage in abstraction, comparison,

Article: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_VII-1_2003-Bauer_pp49-95.pdf Full volume: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MamlukStudiesReview_VII-1_2003.pdf MAMLU±K STUDIES REVIEW VOL. 7, 2003 87 and analogy: in particular, the reader can be prompted by the internal logic of the text to place the literal meaning of a given negative feeling within a wider context provided both by other feelings encountered in the text as well as by her sense of prior and anticipated meanings. In this way, negative feelings, and the concerns of the self that may be implicated with them, can be relocated in a wider perspective. . . . In the literary response, negative feelings are contextualized or transformed rather than avoided: in comparison with the usual notions of purging or balance, this is perhaps a more appropriate way of understanding how a cathartic process might operate while reading."79 In order to make a text work in this way, i.e., in order to enable communication with an audience interested in the emotional potential of a text and desire a cathartic effect, the text has to arouse emotions. Its capacity to arouse emotions is therefore much more important than the question of whether or not the author himself experienced the emotions he talks about, helpful (and biographically interesting) as his own experience may be. It is consequently irrelevant and useless and even contradicts the nature of the literary communication process to ask if the usage of rhetorical devices in a poem corroborates or contradicts the veracity of the poet's utterances. Rather, one should ask if the rhetorical devices are effective in intensifying in the audience emotions that enable them to recontextualize their own experiences. As a matter of fact, foregrounding, i.e., the usage of parameters like meter and rhyme, poetic language, figures of speech, and rhetorical devices, does arouse emotions in itself.80 The way this is achieved and the exact effect of the different factors is dependent on the past experiences and the expectations of the respective public. Since we can no longer conduct neuropsychological experiments on the literary public of the Mamluk period, we can only try to reconstruct their expectations and anticipations by carefully analyzing as many texts as possible and by scrutinizing the abundant theoretical and critical utterance of this time. Such studies have not yet been done. However, it is certainly no daring speculation to assume that the permanency of foregrounding by means of manifold rhetorical devices in Ibn Nuba≠tah's poem had the power to intensify energetically its emotional effect in the audience. This effect seems to be strengthened further by the fact that, despite its closely-woven carpet of foregrounding, no single device stands out to attract special attention. This permanent but rather subdued fuelling of emotions, together with the emotive structure discussed above, may have yielded an extremely emotional text. Its production will not have failed to produce a cathartic effect on

79David S. Miall, "Anticipation and Feeling in Literary Response: A Neuropsychological Perspective," Poetics 23 (1995): 293–94. 80David S. Miall and Don Kuiken, "Foregrounding, Defamiliarization, and Affect: Response to Literary Stories," Poetics 22 (1994): 389–407.

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the poet himself. To indulge in it may have contributed to emotional relief for many of its audience, whatever their personal sufferings may have been, and the whole group of participants in the Mamluk literary system may have experienced a feeling of solidarity resulting from shared emotions.

CONCLUDING REMARKS Ibn Nuba≠tah al-Mis˝r|'s ra≠’|yah is one of at least seven poems he composed on the death of his son(s). We can discern several functions of the poem on multiple levels: (1) It contributes to the process of mourning of the poet himself. (2) It may serve as consolation for other people who have experienced a similar loss. (3) It allows the poet to overcome his absorption in grief and to resume his public role as homme de lettres. (4) As a work of art with its interpretative openness, it is the basis of communication between the poet and his audience in a more general sense. (5) As a highly emotional text it allows its recipients to experience a cathartic process of recontextualization of their own emotions. (6) For the participants in the Mamluk literary system (more or less identical with the ulama) it is considered a text of emotional and artistic relevance to them and in this way helps to stabilize the social group that is defined, in addition to other ways, by participation in the literary discourse. (7) For the members of this social group, who ascribe personal relevance to the text, it helps shape and communicate their attitudes and emotions about childhood death and gives them a language with which to speak about it. (8) All these functions are provided with an additional historical dimension by Ibn Nuba≠tah's transformation of a famous dirge by al- Tiha≠m|, who had lived three and a half centuries earlier. We know that two of Ibn Nuba≠tah's three long dirges were written on the death of his son ‘Abd al-Rah˝|m. His name is mentioned in line 3 of the qa≠f|yah and in the headline of the da≠l|yah (rhyming in -dak). I have hardly any doubt that the ra≠’|yah was composed on the same occasion. In all probability, Ibn Nuba≠tah, who greatly admired the poems of al-Tiha≠m|, wanted to respond to al-Tiha≠m|'s series of three long poems (two ra≠’|yahs and a qa≠f|yah) with a series of his own, comprising three long poems as well. One may try to order Ibn Nuba≠tah's three odes chronologically according to their position in the mourning process of the poet (in which case probably the poem rhyming in –dak would come first), but must at the same time avoid overlooking the literary enterprise these poems represent. As a matter of fact, Ibn Nuba≠tah presented three long and ambitious poems, each of them of very different character, to give his time a new corpus of poems on childhood death as an answer to the, by then, classical poems of al-Tiha≠m|. Thereby, Ibn Nuba≠tah gave a new voice to the experience of childhood death for his own contemporaries, thus confirming the value of the old classics and at the same time remodelling and supplementing (if not superseding) them. Of course, a

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further assessment of Ibn Nuba≠tah's Kindertotenlieder would have to take into account the whole set of poems. Literary ambition was probably also a reason why Ibn Nuba≠tah surrounded his three long dirges with several smaller ones. Again, only one of them mentions the name of ‘Abd al-Rah˝|m in the text, but others may also have been by-products of his composition of the long odes. By means of these small poems, Ibn Nuba≠tah could further transform the tradition to Mamluk conventions, since the epigram was extremely popular in his time. Again, he proved that he could adapt a multitude of literary forms and techniques to his theme, even the tawriyah-pointed epigram. In the preceding, we could ascertain several characteristics of the poem that can be considered typical for the Mamluk period. The fact that the rather homogenous group of the ulama became the bearer of the literary system contributed to a more private nature of literature; the exegetical preoccupations of the ulama favored the use of rhetorical devices of ambiguity such as the tawriyah; and their encyclopedic training might have fostered a tendency to combine many aspects in a small space, as a polydisciplinary, kaleidoscopic text like Ibn Muqri’'s ‘Unwan≠ al-Sharaf al-Wa≠f|, the multifold art of the bad|‘|yah, or the richness of allusions in many Mamluk poems may show. In our example, the extreme density of the poem in several respects may be a reflection of this tendency. However, our knowledge of Mamluk literature is extremely poor, and we are still far from comprehending its peculiarities or even the special characteristics of even its most important poets.81 Even the way a rhetorical device like the tawriyah functions in its poetic context and the kind of intellectual and emotional reactions it provoked are still difficult to state. I may simply conclude therefore by quoting another tawriyah-pointed epigram of Ibn Nubatah.≠ What for the modern reader might appear to be humorous, and therefore irreconcilable with mourning, is applied by Ibn Nuba≠tah to speak about his grief. The tawriyah, which forms the point of the epigram, is based on the double meaning of the word ka≠nu≠n, which is the name of two months of winter, in one of which ‘Abd al-Rah˝|m had died, but also a word designating an oven, a brazier, or a coal pan:82

Ya≠ lahfa qalb| ‘alá ‘Abdi al-Rah˝|m| wa-ya≠ / shawq| ilayhi wa-ya≠ shajw| wa-ya≠ da≠’| F| shahri ka≠nu≠na wa≠fa≠hu al-h˝ima≠mu la-qad / ah˝raqta bi-al-na≠ri ya≠ ka≠nu≠nu ah˝sha≠’| [Oh sorrow in my heart for ‘Abd al-Rah˝|m, oh yearning for him, oh

81Homerin, "Reflections on Arabic Poetry." 82Ibn Nuba≠tah, D|wa≠n, 18 (meter bas|t¸); I translate ka≠nu≠n as December, but it could also be January (ka≠nu≠n al-tha≠n|).

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my grief and malady! Death overtook him in December, but you, December / oven, burnt my intestines with fire!]

TEXT AND TRANSLATION

—UÞË_«Ë ÊUÞË_« ÓgŠuÄ U¹ Í—Uł ÓwFÄœ ÒÊ≈ „—Uł tÒKë ± —UN½_UÐ Ô5Fë pOKŽ X{U1 WI¹bŠ »«d²Ã« sÄ ÓXMJÝ U* ≤ —UMë w1 w²−NÄË ÊUM'« ·dž w1 X½√ pÃUŠË wÃUŠ UÄ ÊUÒ²ý ≥ —«“Ë_UÐ ÔXKIŁ Ë wM²I³<1 ÈdÔ<ë vë ÒwMÐ U¹ pÐ U−Më Ònš ¥ —ULCÄ vKŽ ÎUFÄ ÂËb½ v²Š wÐ »U¼√ pÚŽb¹ rà –≈ Èœdë XOà µ —«bQù« VÁ«uŽ X³<Š v²Š Áœ—Ë q]N9 Í—U'« UCIë XOà ∂ —UDÄùUÐ sH'« ÈÓdž√Ë v]ÃË Ì‚—UÐ WL( q¦Ä Òô≈ XM UÄ ∑ —UÂË_« vÃ≈ X]MŠ UÄ ÒsŠ√Ë UNK¹b¼ ÔÂUL(« XJÐ UÄ pOJÐ√ ∏ —UCÔMÐ U¼dOE½ ÊuOFë wJ³ð U/≈Ë ŸuÄbë ÒdL×0 wJÐ√ π —UGQ dOž «d<(« tÐ X½U U0—Ë ÒÊ≈ ÔXKÁ ΫdOGQ «uÃUÁ ±∞ —UL{≈ ôË Ìs<à ôË ÌbOÐ ÚT<¹ rà Ì÷UÄ Ê«eŠ_UÐ ÒoŠ√Ë ±± —«eÄ »dÁË lL²−Ä bFÐ U¹ ÎUŠdDÄ »dÁ√ ÁULŠË UIKë wzU½ ±≤ —ULŁûà Իd²Ã« t²KNÄ√ uà tðU³MÐ wMÁ«— sBGà wHNà ±≥ —U׳РwFÄœ√ sÄ UN²³Ò−Š wM½QJ1 ÚXHš …Ìd¼u' wHNà ±¥ —UÒO<ë VÂuJÃUÐ wðdOŠ «Ë ÍbÒK& tO1 Ó—UŠ Ì—U<à wHNà ±µ Í—UJ1√ tÐ ÚXKGý UÄ ◊d1 sÄ UA(« sJÝ t½QJ1 Èd¦Ã« ÓsÓJÓÝ ±∂ Í—UIÐ ÊU

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Í—«cŽ ‚u1 t²IÐ√ UNMJà UN³OÞ Ë …UO(« sÄ ÷UO³Ã« vCÄ Ë ≤∂ —U]LÔ<ë Ô5Ž√ XÄU½Ë ΫdNÝ ÍdþU½ Õ]dIð bIK1 ÎUŽœ«Ë Ú+ ≤∑ —UL<Ä w1 r−MÃUÐ ÏYÒ³A²Ä tÄöþ q¹– ÒÊQÂ Ë vłÒbë vŽ—√ ≤∏ Í—«—œ —UNMë fLý XLÒ<Á Â√ tH−Ý …Òd:« vKŽ ÕU³Bë lKš ≤π Í—U×Ý√ ôË UNO1 w³Âu ô w²ÒMłœ ÔdOš√ qHÞ ÚlÄ »Už Â√ ≥∞ Í—«cŠ œU1√ UÄË —cŠ bIK1 v²Hë vKŽ ÊUÄeë W¹œUFà UÒγð ≥± —UM¹bÃUÐ Õ«d1 ÊUÄeë ·dQ vײ½U1 pNłuà Ϋ—UM¹œ X¹uŠË ≥≤ —UÒO²Ã« ÔŸd<Ä pMOÐË wMOÐ UIKë ÈbÄ ÒÊS1 ÚbF³ð Ê≈ ÒwMÐ√ ≥≥ —«eGÐ wFÄ«bÄ p²IÝ bIK1 ÌdŁu WÐdý dA(« w1 wMI<ð Ê≈ ≥¥ —«už√ vÃ≈ ÌœU$√ 5Ð UÄ w×½«uł XM1œ bÁË …UO(« nO ≥µ —ULÁ√ vKŽ ÎUMJðdÄ rOGÃU oÒKłË dBÄ »«dð ÒwMÐ ÈuŠË ≥∂ Í—«uÞ Âu<'« pKð vKŽ dÞË ‚—«uÞ ”uHMë pKð vKŽ ÚXÁdÞ ≥∑ —UHÝ√ vKŽ ÔrN]½QÐ ÎULKŽ r¼—u³Á ÒwDÄ «bO³Ã« Èbà bÐË ≥∏ —UDš_« sÄ ÌdDš vKŽ UÒ½≈ W1U<Ä ¡UMHë qFł s0 ÎUL<Á ≥π —«d1 5Š ôË —«dHë s¹√ rNÃU¦Ä√ XÄÒbIð s¹cKà qÁ ¥∞ —«Òd vłÔbKà r¼œ√Ë ÎUC— œËUFÄ ÂöEKà ÓVNý√ 5Ð UÄ ¥± —U³ž lIM ÌVOý sÄ tOKŽË ÚoײK¹ dLF¹ sÄË dOGBë QD¹ ¥≤ —«bÁôUÐ VNAë »UBð bIÃË U¼d¹bIð w1 VNAë V²ŽË wÃUÄ ¥≥ Í—UCë ÃËd³Ã« bÝ√ ôË u−M¹ Èœdë sÄ »u

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—«cŽ√ sF1 wŽeł «bÐ s¾ÃË ÏdÒ³B²Ä vÃË_« wH1 Ô d³Q s¾K1 µµ —«uł Âu−Më sÄ p²HÒMJðË Ïl{«dÄ ÂULGë sÄ pOKŽ Ò—œ µ∂ Í—«œ√Ë w²−NÄ jÃUž√ sJà wF1UMÐ „«– fOÃ Ë „«dŁ wI<ð µ∑

1. God be your helper as my tears are flowing / my helpers, oh you who have forsaken both my home and hope! 2. When you settled in a garden of dust, my eyes poured forth rivers over thee. 3. Amazingly different is your condition and mine: While you dwell in the lofty chambers of paradise, my heart is in the fire of hell. 4. When we set off on a night journey, you were a light burden, my little son, but you outstripped me, and I was burdened with a heavy load! 5. Would that destruction had summoned me as well, when it did not refrain from you, so that we could have pursued the same race course! 6. Would that destiny had delayed in its permanent course till you could have imagined the end of the route! 7. You were only a flash of lightning from a cloud that rainless turned away but made the eyelids shed a copious rain. 8. I'll weep over you as long as the doves weep over their nestling, and I'll yearn for you as long as they yearn for their nests. 9. No wonder that with reddened tears I weep, for eyes only weep with gold over their own kind. 10. 'Twas but a child so small, they said. True, I replied, but many times my grief for him was anything but small. 11. And is not he who did no wrong with hand or tongue nor hid an evil in his heart the worthiest of grief? 12. A long way 'tis to meet him, though his shelter is the nearest spot. How far is union, yet how close the place to visit him! 13. O sorrow for a twig the growth of which delighted me— if only earth had given it the time to bring forth fruit!

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14. O sorrow for a pearl once shining. It seems as if I'd veiled it now with seas of tears. 15. O sorrow for a nightly traveller whose departure had caused my endurance to wane! How lost am I with the departed star / planet! 16. He settled in the earth but occupies my thoughts so in excess as if he'd settled in my heart. 17. How it distresses me that my ears' guest never enjoyed the hospitality of that tongue! 18. How it distresses me that you departed ere the feet of your intelligence did wade into the seas / meters of poetry! 19. How it distresses me that you behaved so gently with destruction while my tears are poured on you like scattered pearls. 20. My little son, that you were clad in earth, well, 'tis the end of all of us and tis no shame / no one will remain naked. 21. In times like these not much remains to make a man of great expectations happy, thence vanish like a fleeting apparition! 22. If news about my state would reach you there, you'd weep in paradise over the news you hear: 23. Sadness of memories, gloom of loneliness, an abode of perdition, contemptible protection. 24. My little son, I buried you, my treasure, in the soil. Help then your father in the hour of indigence! 25. My little son, misfortune after misfortune has afflicted me, and donated a fortune of rubble to ruins, 26. And gone is the whiteness of life and its sweetness, though life left its whiteness on my beard. 27. Sleep in peace, while my eyes are wounded by sleeplessness when the eyes of the night companions have long been closed in sleep, 28. Staring at a night that seems as if the train of its darkness was nailed down by the stars.83

83Probably by najm the Pleiades are meant. Cf. a line by S˝urr Durr quoted in Paul Kunitzsch and Manfred Ullmann, Die Plejaden in den Vergleichen der arabischen Dichtung (Munich, 1992), 83, in which the Pleiades are compared to the nails of a coat of mail. These nails are compared in al-Tiha≠m|'s ka≠mil ra≠’|yah with water bubbles. This line (49), rhyming in al-misma≠r|, is certainly

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29. Has morning yet veiled the Milky Way, or the light of day put the stars to flight?84 30. Or has an endless darkness, without stars or dawn for me, yet left me along with the child? 31. May then perish the vicissitudes of time that befall noble men! Indeed, I made provisions, but all provisions are in vain, 32. And I embraced in your face a dinar, but time's misfortune / money changing approached and took the dinar away. 33. My dear son, though you are far from me / may you not perish, the time of our meeting draws quickly near.85 34. You will give me a draught of Kawthar's water on the Day of Judgment, for my tears will have given you to drink abundantly before. 35. How can life be after I have buried my intestines between highland and lowland, 36. And the dust of Cairo and Damascus encloses my sons like clouds heaped up around moons? 37. Calamities have come upon these souls, unexpected misfortunes have befallen these bodies. 38. The mounts of their graves appear in the wilderness as a sign that they are on a journey. 39. I swear by him who postponed our end: We are always at some brink of destruction! 40. Say to those the like of whom approached us asking " Where is escape?" : "Time is none to escape!" 41. What is the difference between a white horse / grey-haired galloping with determination into darkness, and a black horse / black-haired jumping into gloom? 42. The small child is trod under foot, whereas he who is granted long life will catch up

alluded to by Ibn Nubatah.≠ His magnificent image was completely misunderstood by M. Muhammad,˝ Ibn Nuba≠tah, 225, who wrongly assumes a connection with a line by Imru’ al-Qays. 84Thus, if one reads qussimat; otherwise: "or had the sun of day distributed glistening stars." 85On the original meaning of the formula la≠ tab‘ad see Gert Borg, "Amma≠ ba‘du: The Meaning of 'la≠ tab‘ad,'" Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik 37 (1999): 13–24.

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with grey hair as if he had whirled up a cloud of dust in his race. 43. Why do I blame the stars / grey-haired and their assignments? The stars / grey-haired are struck by fate themselves! 44. Neither the stinging celestial scorpion will escape destruction nor the rapacious zodiac lion. 45. With his bow the crescent moon shoots at our souls, but the bow is struck by revenge / the strings in turn. 46. Perdition inscribed a document on tombstones that is valid regardless whether it be rejected or confirmed. 47. Let penetrating minds reveal their ignorance— its revelation is a secret great indeed! 48. Let the afflicted bear the pain with calm— how often were a dearly loved and endurance's reward all lost at once! 49. Where are the kings that strutted towards loftiness? They stumbled over their trails right into their graves! 50. Mountains they were, unthinkable to ascend. Destruction's hand has turned them into a handful of wavering dust. 51. Where are the well-armed heroes who, when the clouds of dusk darkened the battle field, ignited fire with their bows and shot with flashing sparks? 52. Unharmed they survived disasters of battle until dark fate led them to a place of destruction to darken their light. 53. Where are the babies who in the cradles lied like blossoms enclosed by their calyces? 54. Death has permeated their bones and flesh until the pearls they were became transformed into mere stones. 55. If I be patient, it is because I force myself to patience in all this; and if I show my grief, how manifold are my excuses! 56. May nursing clouds bestow their copious stream upon you! May servant / moving stars from all sides be around you! 57. They all will moisten the earth of your grave, but be of no avail for me. Instead, I'll try to cheat my heart and to deceive it.

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